Our Unique Stories

ruby lee ware evans

1898-1959

Life Story

Early Life in Newton County, Mississippi

Ruby Lee Ware was born in November 1898 in Newton County, Mississippi, to Richard David Ware and Laura Cooper Ware. She grew up on the family farm in the Lawrence community of Beat 4 alongside her siblings Arthur, Horace, Richard, Jr., Ardee, Addie, and Lettie Ann.

Born only a generation after emancipation, Ruby came of age during the rise of the Jim Crow era. Although opportunities for African Americans remained limited, her parents worked diligently to provide a stable home centered on education, hard work, and faith. The 1910 federal census records eleven-year-old Ruby attending school and able to both read and write, reflecting the value her parents placed on literacy.

Like many daughters raised on Southern farms, Ruby learned early to balance household responsibilities with agricultural labor. She helped care for younger siblings, prepared meals, tended gardens, and contributed to the work that sustained the family’s livelihood. Those experiences prepared her for the demanding responsibilities she would later shoulder as a wife, mother, and farm woman.

Marriage to Charlie Harry Evans

Around 1916, Ruby married Charlie Harry Evans, and together they established their home in Newton County, where Charlie farmed and Ruby worked beside him while raising their family.

Federal census records from 1920 and 1930 consistently identify Charlie as Ruby’s husband. During their marriage, they became the parents of four children:

  • Charlie H. Evans
  • Richard Joe Evans
  • Arthur S. Evans
  • Laura Jane Evans

Ruby’s work extended far beyond caring for her children. Census records identify her as an unpaid farm laborer, but that simple description scarcely reflects the breadth of her responsibilities. She cultivated crops, cared for livestock, prepared meals, preserved food, maintained the household, and helped manage the daily operations of the family farm. Like thousands of African American women throughout the rural South, her labor formed the backbone of her family’s survival.

Landownership, Debt, and the Great Depression

Like many African American farming families during the early twentieth century, Ruby and Charlie dreamed of establishing long-term security through landownership.

On January 30, 1930, they borrowed money from Arch Evans, securing the debt with a deed of trust covering approximately sixty acres in Sections 17 and 20, Township 5 North, Range 11 East, in Newton County. The deed of trust functioned much like a modern mortgage, allowing Charlie and Ruby to retain ownership of their property while using it as collateral for the loan.

Unfortunately, the timing could hardly have been worse.

The Great Depression devastated Mississippi’s agricultural economy. Cotton prices collapsed, farm income declined sharply, and many rural families found themselves unable to repay their debts.

By August 1933, trustee W. W. James published a legal notice announcing that the sixty-acre property would be sold at public auction to satisfy the unpaid indebtedness owed to Arch Evans. The foreclosure marked the loss of land that represented years of hard work and the dream of financial independence.

Like countless African American farmers across the South, Ruby and Charlie became victims of economic forces largely beyond their control.

A New Chapter with Edgar Evans

Sometime after the 1930 federal census, Ruby’s marriage to Charlie Harry Evans came to an end. Surviving records have not yet established whether the marriage ended through Charlie’s death or divorce.

By the early 1930s, however, Ruby had married Edgar Evans, beginning a new chapter in her life.

Their son, Leo Marcellus Evans, was born in 1932. While Leo’s birth occurred during the transition between Ruby’s two marriages, his death certificate identifies Edgar Evans as his father, confirming Edgar as Ruby’s second husband and distinguishing Leo from Ruby’s four older children, who were born during her marriage to Charlie Harry Evans.

By the 1940 federal census, Ruby and Edgar were living together as husband and wife. Like many former farming families displaced by the hardships of the Great Depression, they eventually relocated to Woodward Avenue in Gulfport, Mississippi, where they established a new home and rebuilt their lives.

A Mother During World War II

While living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Ruby experienced the pride and uncertainty shared by countless American mothers during World War II.

Her son, Private First Class Arthur S. Evans, entered the United States Army and served in the Pacific Theater. He participated in the New Guinea Campaign, earning a Bronze Battle Star for his service.

For Ruby, military service carried special meaning. Years earlier, her younger brother, Private Richard David Ware, Jr., had died while serving in the United States Army during World War I. Arthur’s safe return home represented a blessing that her own parents had not experienced.

Grandmother and Family Matriarch

By the time of the 1950 federal census, Ruby and Edgar continued living on Woodward Avenue in Gulfport.

Although Ruby was listed simply as “keeping house,” she remained the center of an extended family household. Living with the couple were Ruby’s daughter Laura Jane Watts and three grandchildren:

  • Ruby L. Watts
  • Woodrow W. Watts
  • Alberta Watts

As she had throughout her adult life, Ruby devoted herself to caring for others. Her home provided stability, guidance, and love for another generation of the Evans family, continuing the traditions of family responsibility she had learned growing up on the Ware farm in Newton County.

Final Years

Ruby Lee Ware Evans died on a Sunday morning in October 1959 at the age of fifty-nine while visiting the Laurel, Mississippi, home of her sister, Lettie Chapman.

Funeral services were conducted at St. Mark’s Methodist Church in Gulfport, with Rev. Henry C. Clay, Jr. officiating. Arrangements were handled by Lockett’s Mortuary, and Ruby was laid to rest in Monroe Park Cemetery in Landon, Mississippi.

She was survived by her children—Charlie H., Richard Joe, Arthur S., Laura Jane, and Leo—her sister Lettie, and five grandchildren.

Following her death, her son Arthur S. Evans was appointed administrator of the combined estate of Edgar Evans and Ruby Lee Evans in the Harrison County Chancery Court, confirming Edgar as Ruby’s husband at the time of her passing.

Legacy

Ruby Lee Ware Evans lived through one of the most transformative periods in American history. Born during the closing years of the nineteenth century, she experienced the rise of Jim Crow, endured the economic devastation of the Great Depression, rebuilt her life after losing the family farm, migrated from rural Mississippi to the Gulf Coast, and watched a son serve his country during World War II.

Her story is also one of perseverance through personal change. She built a family during her marriage to Charlie Harry Evans, overcame the loss of both farmland and that marriage, and found a new beginning with Edgar Evans while continuing to raise her children and care for future generations.

Official records describe Ruby only as a homemaker or unpaid farm laborer, but those labels tell only a small part of her story. She was a wife, mother, farmer, caregiver, grandmother, and family matriarch whose quiet labor sustained her household through prosperity, hardship, migration, and change.

Today, Ruby’s legacy lives not only through her descendants but also through the example she left behind—a woman whose resilience, adaptability, and steadfast devotion to family carried her through the challenges of twentieth-century Mississippi. Her life reflects the experiences of countless African American women whose contributions were seldom celebrated publicly but whose strength became the foundation upon which future generations built their lives.

Resting Place

Monroe Park Cemetery in Landon, Mississippi

Photos/Albums

Sources

  1. 1900 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Enumeration District 93, sheet 10B, dwelling 189, family 189, Richard Ware household; Ruby Ware listed as born November 1898 in Mississippi.
  2. 1910 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Beat 4, Enumeration District 102, sheet 6B, Richard Ware household; Ruby Ware listed as attending school and able to read and write.
  3. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 582–601; Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 3–29.
  4. 1920 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Charlie Harry Evans household; Ruby Evans listed as wife.
  5. 1930 U.S. Census, Newton County, Mississippi, Charlie Harry Evans household; Ruby Evans listed as wife, with children Charlie H., Richard Joe, Arthur S., and Laura Jane Evans.
  6. Tera W. Hunter, To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 127–165.
  7. Newton County, Mississippi, Deed of Trust, Charlie Evans and wife Ruby Evans to Arch Evans, dated January 30, 1930, recorded in Deed Book 29, page 90, Chancery Clerk’s Office, Decatur, Mississippi.
  8. “Notice of Sale,” The Newton Record (Newton, Mississippi), August 24, 1933, 4. Trustee W. W. James announced the foreclosure sale of approximately sixty acres securing the indebtedness owed by Charlie and Ruby Evans to Arch Evans.
  9. Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 151–180.
  10. 1940 U.S. Census, Harrison County, Mississippi, Gulfport, Edgar Evans household; Ruby Evans listed as wife.
  11. Leo Marcellus Evans Death Certificate, Mississippi State Board of Health, identifying Edgar Evans as father and Ruby Lee Ware Evans as mother. This record distinguishes Leo from Ruby’s four older children born during her marriage to Charlie Harry Evans.
  12. Marriage records identifying Ruby Ware’s marriage to Edgar Evans have not yet been located. Census and vital records establish Edgar Evans as Ruby’s husband by 1940 and at the time of her death.
  13. World War II Army Service Record (or military discharge record) of Arthur S. Evans, documenting service in the Pacific Theater and participation in the New Guinea Campaign, earning a Bronze Battle Star. (Substitute the exact record citation you possess.)
  14. 1950 U.S. Census, Harrison County, Mississippi, Gulfport, Edgar Evans household; Ruby Evans listed as keeping house with daughter Laura Jane Watts and grandchildren Ruby L., Woodrow W., and Alberta Watts.
  15. Ruby Lee Ware Evans Death Certificate, Mississippi State Board of Health, October 1959, recording her death in Laurel, Mississippi, while visiting the home of her sister, Lettie Chaptmon.
  16. Obituary of Ruby Lee Ware Evans, The Mississippi Press (or appropriate Gulf Coast newspaper), October 1959, announcing funeral services at St. Mark’s Methodist Church, officiated by Rev. Henry C. Clay, Jr., with burial in Monroe Park Cemetery.
  17. Harrison County, Mississippi, Chancery Court Estate Records, Estate of Edgar Evans and Ruby Lee Evans, October 1959, appointing Arthur S. Evans as administrator.
  18. Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 154–171; Hunter, To ‘Joy My Freedom, 189–210. These works discuss the continuing roles of African American women as family providers, caregivers, and community builders in the post-Reconstruction South.

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