Welcome to Piglet’s family tales. Like fairy tales, but related.
Our story begins in March 30th, 1828, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (it’s where they hunt elephants, you know — because their tusks are looser?), when Eugene Goldsmith Evans draws in his first breath. He is the first son of John Evans, of Gloucester, and Isabella Goldsmith, from Charleston, later of Savannah. They met and married in Savannah, Georgia, March 25th, 1823, when Isabella was only 23, and moved to Alabama. 5 years later, they welcome Eugene into the world.
Isabella and John produce a brother every 2 years for Eugene, and one sister in between, for the next 4 years. By the time he’s six, he has 1 sister and 3 brothers. Tragedy strikes 3 years later, in Montgomery, Alabama, when his father dies, at the young age of only 36.
Isabella is a remarkable woman. She rears those 5 children by herself, making a living by teaching piano. 12 years later, by 1850, they are living together in a home that Isabella owns, worth $1000, in Savannah, where Eugene has begun practicing as an engineer. At 21! His brothers are at sea, working as a printer, and studying. His older sister Virginia is not accounted for, possibly she is away at college? In another 4 years, she will marry a Chapin, move away to Virginia and rear a passel of her own children. (A passel == 5.) (Some uncertainty re: Isabella’s age, self-reported on the census forms as 10 years less than it should be. I hope so, else she married at 13. But her gravestone agrees, reporting her age as 72 years in 1874, which is close enough? I hope?)
Over the next decade, everything about Eugene’s life changes. He gets married, moves to South Carolina, lives with his mother-in-law (another remarkable woman, in a completely different way!), and starts rearing his own passel-plus-plus of children. His mother Isabella remains in Savannah, launching & supporting her children into the world and teaching music from her home at 109 West Broad St until she dies in 1874. She continues to make a comfortable living, with one son or another living with her through the years. On August 2nd, 1870, her home is worth $15,000 (property appreciation, same location) and she has $800 in other monies. She is listed in the Savannah city directory for 1870 as a music teacher at the corner of West Broad and Robert along with her son W.R., the printer. There may have been some raw carrot-eating moments in there, but she seems to have made it through the major events of the 1860s relatively unscathed.
On October 17th, 1860, Eugene is living in Greenville, South Carolina, with his mother-in-law, Sophia Divver, who is keeping house for them in the $2000 home that she owns (along with personal estate of $10,300 — Sophia’s money is a problem; we’ll get to why later) and Sophia’s young adult sons, one a carpenter and the other a student, as well as his wife, 25-year old Sarah Jane, and their 3 children under the age of 6 (one girl, 2 boys). Eugene is working as an engineer, and has a 22-year-old clerk boarding with him, probably same working for his company. A lively household.
Whatever disturbances the 1860s may have brought, in 1870 Eugene is head of his own household, living in Pendleton Township, Anderson County, SC, where he will continue wielding a disproportionate amount of influence as a very solid citizen of Anderson for the rest of his and some of his notable descendants’ lives. He is now a merchant, with $3000 of net worth. His wife, Sarah Jane, is keeping house for the 7 children she has churned out, 5 of whom are in school, 2 of whom are at home, tripping her underfoot. And she’s pregnant again, with my great-grandfather, Joseph Manly Evans! Sarah Jane does very well in the motherhood department, producing 2 more boys and losing a third child (her only baby loss) in the early years of the 1870s.
Moving forward another decade, in 1880, he has resumed practicing as an engineer. His mom in Savannah has passed, but most of his kids are still living at home with him, in Anderson. His oldest daughter, Virginia, is teaching music, like her grandmother did. His second eldest son, Eugene, Jr., is clerking. Teenagers Lula, who will pass next year, and Maggie are in school. George, his teenage son, has apprenticed to a printer. Furman, Joseph and Belton are still in elementary school. (Oldest son James has moved out?)
The 1890s are lost to a fire of the census records :-(, but most of the family is still together in 1900, living at 414 N. McDuffy St., in Anderson, SC. By now, Eugene and Sarah have been married for 45 years and will continue happily married until their deaths 8 & 9 years later. His two oldest sons, James and Eugene, Jr., have moved out (married? living nearby? stay tuned! this family is tight….), and his eldest daughter Virginia has married and had a son, Benjamin, and moved back home.
Eugene, 72, has retired from his engineering practice. Sarah, 65, has her patience tested and her hands full with household management. Virginia, 44, is teaching music, and rearing her 3-year-old toddler. Margaret, 36, is teaching, and opening the library for the Women’s Library Association (that will become the Carnegie Library) 3 days a week. George, John and Joseph (33 – 29) have opened a drug store together with Dr. J. C. Harris, selling drugs, toilet articles, paints, oils, etc., and Joseph is also running the Anderson Opera House, with his friend N. B. Sharpe. George, in addition to his interests in the drugstore and the general store, is or will soon be running the phone company, the cotton mill, and the bank, and become VP at the savings and loan and the electric company. (John is faithfully minding the store while his brothers pursue their other business interests.) Belton, 26, is a merchant. His sisters, Margaret and Virginia, will both join him in running the B&O Emporium: clothing, shoes, hats and mens furnishings.
