Fatal Affair At Stumptown SHSMO Digital Newspaper Project "The Bates County Record (Butler, Missouri) Sat. Dec. 29, 1877

There seems to have been a story about my Mom, Bertha Louise Evans, Grandfather J.S.Evans, her Dad George Robert Evans Father, circulating around the family for generation after generation. Thus, the story got very convoluted. 

The story was "Joseph Samuel Evans was in Lane, Alta OK. horse trading, got into a fight with a man over a horse, shot and killed him and was hung/lynched on the spot" Well, after many, many hours of researching this story and spending $15.00 sent to Lane, Alta OK to ask for research on a Lynching of Joseph Samuel Evans in 1893 to no avail. 

I began researching old Bates County Historical Newspapers to vindicate this story; I ran across the "true" story, quite by accident of an event that he was involved in, killed a man by stabbing (his Father-In -Law W.P. Smith), went to trail and was acquitted. (the details in the newspaper articles above) 

Joseph Samuel Evans was born in 1938 MT. Sterling Montgomery Kentucky in 1893 (unable to find the month or day), he was married 3 times and had 13 children. He married Julia Anderson in 1861(marriage certificate, no proof of a divorce, he seemed to have abandoned his family and moved to Butler Missouri) Took up living with Mary Smith 1869 (no proof of a marriage certificate found) (daughter of the man he was accused of killing W.P. Smith) after her early death he married my Mom's Dad's Mother, my Great Grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth Richards-Standiford in 1885. 

Joseph Samuel Evans died in Butler, Bates county in 1893 and was buried at The Double Branch Cemetery, he was age 55. 

I have yet to find a death certificate for the state of Missouri did not start keeping death records until 1910. 

My Mom ALWAYS talked of a Grandma White who she said raised her Dad, George Robert and his brother John William Evans. My Mom loved this lady, she said she was the nicest and most loving woman, she thought so highly of her. When Grandma White was aging an ill she mailed my Mom pictures of her Dad, George Robert, the only pictures my Mom ever had of him. I am still researching Grandma White, I know she owned a farm next to Joseph and Sarah Evans but have hit a brick wall on any additional information about her. "White" is a hard name to research. 

I put 2 and 2 together and came up with when Joseph Samuel Evans died their Mother, Sarah Elizabeth Richards-Standiford-Evans abandoned her 4 children, Lola, Major, George Robert, John and left the state to live with her brother in Galena, Kent, Maryland as proof; the 1900 census for her. I found Lola and Major living in a boarding home in Butler at ages 13 and 10 respectively attending school with no evidence of a Mother or Guardian. I guess the lady my Mom knew as Grandma White took in Grandpa Evans, age 9 and Uncle John, age 7 (I still have not found any evidence of where Uncle John was in 1900 I am assuming with Grandma White after the census was recorded)?

I am glad I have cleared up a "myth" about my Great Grandfather, Joseph Samuel Evans and know my Great Grandmother Sarah Elizabeth Richards-Standiford-Evans-Vancil was an evil, uncaring mother and a cruel hearted person. 

My Mom asked me to research her family before she passed away in 2008. It was years after this I found the family history on ancestry and the stories she wanted me to validate for her.

My name is Sandra Kaye Brittingham, this family history is for for my Mom, Bertha Louise Evans-Brittingham and my Grandpa, George Robert Evans, Aunt Lola, Uncle Major Bennett and Uncle John, who I never really knew. 

God Bless all of them, it was not an easy life for any of them.