Elizabeth Ann Bishop Evans

Ma Evans

Elizabeth Ann Bishop was my great-great grandmother. She was born December 3, 1849 near Bexar, in Marion County, Alabama to William T. Bishop and his wife, Ann Bryan McDonald. Ann Bryan died when Elizabeth was barely two years old, and W. T. remarried to Sarah Adeline Johnson. It has been said that Ann Bryan McDonald spoke with a thick Scottish brogue, and indeed her grandfather Archibald was born in Perth County, Scotland in 1768. The McDonalds were among the Scottish immigrants who found their way up the Cape Fear River in North Carolina where a large contingent of Scots settled in the early 1800s.

Elizabeth married John T. Evans in 1871 in Marion County, and they had seven children, including one who died as an infant. They made their home south of Tremont, Mississippi, not too far from her childhood home in Bexar. It has been said that John adored his wife. Their grandson, Buddy Robinson, said that Pa Evans expected his daughters to wait on their mother, hand and foot, and that Pa Evans himself never let Elizabeth soil the bottom of her feet, carrying her from their carriage to the house.

Elizabeth died August 14, 1936. She had been in poor health for some time following a fall in which she injured her back. She was 87 years old when she died. I have her gold pocket watch, and ever so often I take it out and look at it, and wonder about her.