nancy evans scott
1909-1997
Life Story
Early Life in the Evans Family
Nancy Evans was born in Mississippi, the daughter of Robert “Rob” Evans and Betsy Curry Evans. Her exact year of birth is uncertain.
The 1910 census appears to place Nancy in Robert and Betsy’s household at an age suggesting a birth around 1899. That date, however, conflicts substantially with later records. Subsequent census entries consistently portray Nancy as younger, and her 1997 obituary reported that she was 88 years old at the time of her death, which would place her birth about 1908 or 1909. The later evidence therefore appears more consistent with a birth during the first decade of the twentieth century, while the age recorded for Nancy in 1910 should be treated cautiously.
Nancy grew up in Beat 4 of Newton County, surrounded by a large family. Her known brothers and sisters included Dee, Sam, Jay, Jody, Sally, Nina, and Birta Evans. She also had an infant brother, Robert Evans, born in March 1915, who lived only one month.
Her childhood was rooted in the same rural agricultural world that shaped the lives of her parents and older siblings.
Losing Her Mother
Nancy was still young when her mother, Betsy Curry Evans, died at Lawrence on June 17, 1916.
Only thirteen months earlier, the family had buried Betsy’s infant son Robert.
Betsy’s death left Robert Evans to continue raising the younger members of the family. He later married Anna, who became Nancy’s stepmother.
The loss of her mother during childhood or early adolescence would have been one of the defining changes in Nancy’s early family life.
Education and Work
Unlike the generations of her family born during slavery and immediately afterward, Nancy received formal schooling.
Later records indicate that she completed approximately the sixth grade and could read and write.
By adulthood, Nancy worked outside the family farm. Records identify her at different points as a cook for a private family, a laborer, and later as a private-home caregiver.
These occupations placed her within a type of work performed by many African American women in twentieth-century Mississippi—domestic service and personal care carried out within private households. Although often poorly documented in official records, such work provided income and was an important part of the local economy.
Nancy’s life, however, was not confined to domestic employment.
She also worked in education.
Teaching at Jerusalem Lawrence Church School
One particularly important aspect of Nancy’s life was her service as an elementary school teacher at the Jerusalem Lawrence Church School.
That role places her within the tradition of Black church-supported education in rural Newton County.
Before the consolidation and integration of public schools transformed education in Mississippi, churches frequently provided not only religious instruction but also spaces, teachers, and organizational support for the education of African American children.
Nancy’s work as a teacher therefore represents a different dimension of her life from the agricultural and domestic labor that appears in census records.
She was not simply a member of a farming family.
At one point in her life, she was helping educate children in the community in which she herself had grown up.
Marriage to C. C. Scott
Nancy married C. C. Scott, although the date of their marriage has not yet been established. By 1940, Nancy was again living in the household of her father, Robert Evans, in Newton County. The census recorded her marital status as divorced, indicating that she and her husband were no longer living together.⁵
Later evidence, however, complicates that designation.
In the summer of 1977, Nancy Evans Scott brought a suit against C. C. Scott in the Chancery Court of Newton County. Because C. C. was then living outside Mississippi at P.O. Box 834, Harriman, Tennessee, the court issued a public “Notice to Non-Resident” summoning him to appear before the Chancery Court in Decatur on September 19, 1977, to defend Cause No. 10,293, brought by Nancy.⁶
The newspaper notice does not state the nature of the suit. Consequently, we should not automatically call it a divorce proceeding unless the actual Chancery Court case file confirms that. What the notice establishes is that Nancy and C. C. Scott remained connected through a legal matter as late as 1977. It also demonstrates why the marital-status entries appearing in census records should be interpreted cautiously.
Returning to Her Father’s Home
Nancy remained with her father into his final years.
In 1940, she was living with Robert and Anna Evans in the Lawrence area.
By 1950, Robert was elderly and no longer able to work. Nancy was again living in his household, this time along with Robert’s grandchildren Bill Evans, Sam Evans, and Johnny Evans.
Her continued presence is noteworthy.
Robert had once provided the household in which Nancy grew up. Decades later, after the end of her marriage, that same family home again became her residence. As Robert aged and became unable to work, Nancy remained there.
The census cannot tell us precisely what caregiving responsibilities she assumed, so we should not automatically describe her as her father’s caregiver. What it does establish is that father and daughter shared the same household through the final years of Robert’s life.
Robert Evans died in 1953.
Union Chapel and Community Life
Nancy’s roots in Lawrence extended well beyond her father’s household.
She became a longtime member of Union Chapel United Methodist Church, an institution closely connected with several members of the Evans family.
Her relationship with the church eventually came full circle: after decades of life elsewhere and in Lawrence, Union Chapel would become the site of her final funeral service and burial.
Nancy’s documented work as a teacher, caregiver, and church member also gives her biography a character distinct from those of her farmer brothers.
Her life was centered heavily upon service to people—children in a church school, families for whom she worked, relatives with whom she shared a household, and the church community to which she belonged.
Preserving Her Brother Sam’s Military Legacy
Nancy also appears in the records following the death of her brother Sam Evans, a World War I veteran.
After Sam died in 1970, it was Mrs. Nancy Scott who applied for the government military marker to be placed at his grave.
That small act preserved her brother’s military service in a permanent form.
Decades after they had grown up together in Robert and Betsy’s household, Nancy was still attending to the affairs and memory of her family.
A Later Move to Gulfport
In the final period of her life, Nancy left the Lawrence area and relocated south to Gulfport, Mississippi.
There she lived at 26 Liz Circle, under the care of Shirley Hardy and near her godson, Clifton Hardy.
The move represented a major geographical change after a lifetime largely associated with Newton County. Yet her connection to Lawrence was not severed.
When her life ended, she would return there.
Death and Return to Lawrence
Nancy Evans Scott died on Saturday, December 20, 1997, at the age of 88.
Her obituary’s reported age provides one of the strongest clues to her actual birth period. If accurate, it places her birth around 1908 or 1909, making the substantially older age attributed to Nancy in the 1910 census difficult to reconcile with the remainder of her documented life.
Funeral services were held at Union Chapel United Methodist Church in Lawrence.
Nancy was then laid to rest in Union Chapel Cemetery, returning to the community where generations of her family had lived, worshiped, worked, and been buried.
A Life of Family and Service
Nancy Evans Scott lived through nearly the entire twentieth century.
She was born into the large farming household of Robert and Betsy Evans.
She lost her mother while still young.
She received an education through approximately the sixth grade.
She married, experienced divorce, and returned to her father’s household.
She worked as a cook and caregiver.
She taught elementary school children at the Jerusalem Lawrence Church School.
She remained connected to Union Chapel.
She helped preserve the military memory of her brother Sam.
And in later life, she moved from Newton County to Gulfport before ultimately returning to Lawrence for burial.
Nancy’s life therefore cannot be summarized only through her marital status or the households in which census takers found her.
Her records reveal a woman whose life repeatedly revolved around family, education, caregiving, and community.
And perhaps most appropriately, after nearly nine decades of change, Nancy Evans Scott was brought home to Lawrence and buried among the community from which her story had begun.
Resting Place
Union Chapel United Methodist Church Cemetery
Photos/Albums
Sources
- 1. 1910 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, population schedule, enumeration district 93, p. 21A, household of Robert Evans; household included Robert and Bessy Evans and children Dee, Sam, Jay, Jody, Sally, Nina, Birta, and Nancy Evans. Nancy’s reported age suggests a birth about 1899; however, this conflicts substantially with later records and her 1997 obituary.
- 2. Mississippi State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, certificate of death for Betsy Evans, Newton County, Mississippi, registration district 9165, file no. 90; died June 17, 1916, Lawrence, Newton County; father Jake Curry; mother Sallie Logan; informant Rob Evans.
- 3. Mississippi State Board of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, certificate of death for Robt. Evans, Newton County, Mississippi, file no. 54, registered no. 7266; born March 28, 1915; died April 28, 1915, Lawrence; father Rob Evans; mother Betsey Curry. This infant was Nancy’s younger brother.
- 4. 1930 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, population schedule, enumeration district 13, p. 5A, dwelling 93, family 99, household of Robert Evans; household included Robert, wife Anna, daughter Nancy, and granddaughter Marie Williams.
- 5. 1940 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, Lawrence area, population schedule, enumeration district 51-15, sheet 7B, household 130, household of Robert Evans; Nancy Scott identified as Robert’s daughter and recorded as divorced.
- 6. “Notice to Non-Resident,” The Newton Record (Newton, Mississippi), August 3, 1977, p. 17; notice to C. C. Scott, P.O. Box 834, Harriman, Tennessee, ordering him to appear before the Chancery Court of Newton County on September 19, 1977, to defend Cause No. 10,293, brought by Nancy Evans Scott; notice dated July 15, 1977, W. H. Webb, Chancery Clerk.
- 7. Obituary of Nancy Evans Scott, Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi), December 25, 1997, p. 18; reports her death December 20, 1997, at age 88, later Gulfport residence, employment and community associations, funeral at Union Chapel United Methodist Church, Lawrence, and burial in the church cemetery.
- 8. 1950 U.S. census, Newton County, Mississippi, population schedule, enumeration district 51-22, p. 31, dwelling 239, household of Rob Evans; household included daughter Nancy Scott and grandchildren Bill Evans, Sam Evans, and Johnny Evans; Robert recorded as unable to work.
- 9. U.S. government military headstone application for Sam Evans, World War I veteran, died August 20, 1970; Mrs. Nancy Scott identified as Sam Evans’s sister and applicant for his military marker at Union Chapel Cemetery, Lawrence, Mississippi.
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