Evans, Thomas (1849) - Biography

HISTORY OF THOMAS EVANS

            Thomas Evans wrote in his journal about the date of his birth as follows: “I, Thomas Evans was born at Tredegar, Monmouthshire on July 10^th, 1849.  I don’t remember much about it.” 

            His parents, William Evans and Caroline Lee were married the 15^th of October 1845 in Nebo Baptist Chapel at Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire.  Witnesses to the ceremony were Caroline’s brother and sister, John Lee and Mary Ann Heynes.

            William and Caroline had three children born at Tredegar, Hannah, born 14 July 1846,  Thomas, born 10 July 1849, and Sarah, born 7 October, 1854.  Hannah married Edwin Powles on 3 June 1876 and their children were Edwin, Jack, Tom, the Dodd Lady, and Emma.   Sarah married Robert Manship in October 1882 and their children were William and Caroline.  Sarah Evans Manship died 2 May 1935.  Thomas lived a long and eventful life until his death at age 93 in Shiprock, New Mexico, half a world a way from his boyhood home in south Wales.

            After just two years of formal schooling, Thomas became a miner like his father William.  Thomas stood only 5'4" tall in the prime of his life but was strong and muscular, developing his strength while digging, lifting and hauling coal.  From youth to manhood Thomas wore a full beard which he kept trimmed short.  In his later years, one of his grandsons asked why he didn’t shave, Thomas replied that his father had a quick temper, and once in a sudden rage, picked up a piece of coal and threw it at Thomas, striking him in the face.  The coal left a permanent blue mark after the wound healed, of which Thomas was ashamed and grew the beard to cover what was often called “the mark of a miner.”   Thomas explained that another small blue streak on his cheek beside his nose was made when a small piece of coal fell from the roof of the mine shaft and hit him.  When a layer of fine coal dust penetrates the pores of the skin, a blue/black mark remains.

            Thomas worked in the Ty Trist mine in Tredegar, a major operation at the time which produced coal and steam power to run the pulleys and elevators on which men and supplies were lowered into the mine and coal lifted to the surface.   Miners entered the lifts and descended into the mine at the beginning of twelve-hour shifts, working six days a week, often in dangerous conditions.  Mine shafts were deep and dark, filled with workers, rats, and coal cars which Thomas called “wagins.”  There were the ever-present pockets of methane gas which a pick might free from the rock and explode from the open candle flames miners used to light the mine shafts.  Every miner knew well the danger of falling rocks and cave-ins.  Workers often developed a serious lung disease from years of breathing in coal dust which they called “black lung”, that eventually filled their lungs and suffocated them.

            Thomas’s grandchildren were both fascinated and horrified when Thomas told them about the rats living in the mines, stating that “some of them were as big as a small cat.”  He related that the rats were vicious, and if miner poked a stick at a rat, the rodent often climbed the stick and tried to attack the miner.  Rats were good climbers and for this reason, miners had the habit of tying a cord around their trousers just below the knee to keep the rats from crawling up their pant legs.  They also wore heavy leather boots with hobnailed soles to protect their feet from the water, rocks, and muck in the mines.

            Thomas and his family moved to Spout Row in Tredegar when he was five years old.  Living conditions were adequate for the salary paid to miners.  Thomas’ mother, Caroline Lee Evans cared for her husband and three children, cooking over an open grate with coal and coke for cooking and heating due to the expense of firewood.  Clothes were washed by hand and placed on wooden racks which were pulled out of the way by ropes and pulleys to the kitchen ceiling for drying.

            Beginning late in the afternoon, Caroline and her daughters hauled water into the kitchen to heat for the daily bath.  When the men arrived from the mines, the bathing began in a small wooden tub on the floor near the grate.  William bathed first, then Thomas sat in the same tub and scrubbed as much of the black as he could from his hands and face before he was allowed to don clean clothes and sit at the supper table. After supper the filthy clothes were washed in the same wooden bath tub.  Layers of stained and blackened clothing were dropped into the tub: coat, vest, shirt, neck scarf, trousers, socks, and underwear.  The drying rack was lowered from the ceiling, the clean clothes laid upon it, and it was returned to its lofty position so the clothing could be worn to work the next day.  Ironing and pressing of clothes was reserved for Sunday best.

            William Evans, Thomas’ father, was badly injured in a mining accident when a large rock fall from the ceiling pinned him to the floor.  Thomas recounted in his journal that he was 14 years old and working with his father when the accident occurred.  He was very frightened, but had the sense to find a long iron bar and pry the rock up so his injured father could pull himself free.  Thomas ran for help and William was carried home where he died of his injuries nine days later, on the 21^st of April 1863 at New Pits near Bedwellty Pits, down the Sirhowy Valley from Tredegar.  Thomas became the young but capable breadwinner for his mother and sisters although he had received only two years of schooling.  Coal mining was the only work he knew, having started working alongside his father at the age of seven.

            In a brief history of his life written for his grandson, Richard Evans, Thomas wrote: “In the year 1873 I left home and went to Pontypridd, Glamorganshire, on a visit and I stayed there for good.  On the first Sunday evening I went with the folks of the house where I was staying to the Methodist Church and it was the first time I seen the young lady that became your grandmother.  Something told me she was to be my wife.  At Christmas Eve the young lady came to the house where I was living, and when she went home I escorted her home, then we made the date for Sunday night to go to Church, and we kept it for six months. Then something came up that we did not meet again for a year—during which time Jane Ann was hired out as a “domestic.”

            The young lady who married Thomas Evans was Jane Ann Coles, daughter of John and Mary Hodges Coles.  Thomas and Jane Ann agreed to be partners for life, and were married on June 3, 1876.  The original certificate reads as follows:

            “Thomas Evans, age 27, bachelor, collier, residence Pontypridd, son of William Evans, collier; and Jane Ann Coles, age 22, spinster; residence Pontypridd, daughter of John Coles, Manager; were married in the Parish Church, after Banns, by Rice Jones, Vicar, on June 3, 1876, in the presence of David James and Anne James.  The above is a true copy of the marriage register of the Parish Church of Eglwysilan, entry No. 355.”  They continued to go to the Methodist Church together and became members of the congregation.

            On March 14, 1877, their first child, William Evans was born in Pontypridd.  The couple continued to attend Church, taking baby William along with them.  At one Sunday revival meeting, the loud singing and praying frightened the baby who began to cry.  Thomas records, “an old lady got down on her knees and began to pray quite loud and then got louder and it scared our baby so his mother got up to take him out but the door was locked.  She came back to me and said that when she went out she would never come in there again, and she kept her word.”

            The next day in the mine Thomas told his co-worker Robert Bishop about the experience.  Robert Bishop, a Latter-day Saint, invited the couple to attend a meeting with him which they did.  They walked the mile to the meeting house on Sundays and Thursday nights for many months.  Jane Ann was convinced that the gospel was true and was baptized in 1880.  Thomas was reluctant, although he investigated the gospel for many years.  He wrote: “I had a bad case of stuttering and it was hard for me to speak.  I knew that if I joined the Church I would be advanced in the Priesthood and be expected to speak in the meetings. I was very sensitive about my stuttering and did not want to be ridiculed for it.  This impediment kept me from joining the Church although I had attended for three years.”

            “Then one of the Elders talked to me and told me I must not question the Lord’s work any longer, and so I decided to be baptized.  When I was baptized and confirmed, this impediment [stuttering] left me at once and never came back.  This is a strong testimony to me.  I was confirmed the same night I was baptized, [Friday night, October 14, 1881].”

            Thomas continues, “On Sunday, October 23, 1881, I was ordained a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood.  Two months later I was made a Teacher.  Two months from then I was ordained a Priest.  Fourteen months from that time I was ordained an Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood.  In 1883 I was appointed Branch Clerk and I was Clerk for a year.  In 1884 I was set apart as First Counselor to the Branch President, and in 1886 I was set apart as Branch President.”

            “While I was President of the branch, one of the Counselors suggested ...we go to a little village ...to see if we could hold Sunday meetings....While there it began to get cloudy and it looked like it was raining behind us...We started out and after a short time it began to rain.  We had a steady climb along the road to the top of a slope, then it was downward for some distance...When I reached home I pulled off my coat and vest.  I had no umbrella nor overcoat, and it had rained all the five miles I had walked, but there was only a wet spot on each shoulder of my coat.  That is a testimony to me that the Lord takes care of His servants who are engaged in His work.”

            In 1888 Thomas and his family moved to the Merthyr Conference House at 98 Twynyrodyn Street in Merthyr Tydfil.  Their duties consisted of keeping house for the missionaries laboring in the Merthyr District.  The Elders lived at the house, ate there, had their laundry done, and met by appointment with the Branch President on the first Sunday of each month.  Jane Ann took care of the cooking and washing for the Elders in addition to caring for her family.

            Thomas recorded, “We had lively, and sometimes risky times in our meetings in Merthyr.  The main trouble came from anti-Mormon disturbers who would try to break up our meetings.”  But other records show that the Welsh people in the area were interested in the gospel, there were many baptisms and the Church began to grow.

            During that time, sorrow came to the Evans family.  A son was born to Thomas and Jane Ann on the 18^th of September, 1889.  The baby, named Joseph, became ill at the age of nine months and all the faith, prayers and administrations were of no avail.  The baby died on 29 July 1890 and was buried in the Cefn Coed Cemetery in what was considered “unconsecrated ground.”  The family were not members of the officially recognized state church, and the child had not been baptized shortly after birth in the established rites of that religion, so could not be buried in consecrated ground.  

            Four years later, Thomas and Jane Ann decided to leave their native land.  Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and leaders Brigham Young, Jr., and John R. Young, the family made the decision to join with other saints in Zion.  They were tired of the persecution and ridicule heaped upon them by former friends and neighbors who hooted and jeered at them after they became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They began to plan and save for their journey.   Their children, William, John, Thomas Henry, Sylvia, Mary Ellen, and Edwin Charles accompanied them.

            From Thomas’s journal: “August 27^th we left Liverpool for New York [on the ship Wyoming].  We arrived there on Thursday Night, Sept. 6^th at 8 oclock.  We thought to land on Wenesday [sic] Morning, but ware disipointed [sic] for when the Docter [sic] Came on Board he informed us that we could not Land.  There was some German Ships in the Harbour That had Cholera on board...”

            After twelve days in the harbor, they were taken to Fire Island for five days. After many

days of waiting and following a long train ride, they finally arrived in Salt Lake City on Thursday September 27, 1892.  The family stayed with relative, David R. Gill for two or three days in the Salt Lake 15^th Ward. Thomas made arrangements for a house in the 5^th Ward at a brick yard on 8^th South and 3^rd West where they lived for the short time they stayed in Salt Lake. 

            On November 7, 1892, Thomas Evans was rebaptized by N. V. Jones and reconfirmed by John R. Morgan.  Rebaptizing was a common practice in the early days of the Church.  Jane A. Evans was rebaptized by N. V. Jones and reconfirmed by F. W. Schoenfeld.  Children William, John, Thomas Henry, and Sylvia were all rebaptized the same day by N. V. Jones in the 15^th Ward baptismal font. 

            Work was scarce with so many others having emigrated to Salt Lake City.  Thomas worked at whatever odd job he could find, but it was a struggle.  After a year of hardship in the city, the family left Salt Lakefor Fruitland, New Mexico on the 24^th of August 1893, arriving on September 4, 1893.   

            Thomas wrote, “John R. Young gave us a place to live in when we arrived until we could get our own place, it was uphill to get one.  We didn’t have a red cent only our clothes and bedding.  I started to work in the Stevens coal mine on the 6^th of September.  I had to wheel the coal out to the wagons in wheelbarrows.  There were no rails, no coal cars, no animals to pull the cars.  The coal sold for $1.50 a ton.  I got 75 cents and all expenses was paid by the owner of the mine.” 

            So, after leaving Wales and the hardships of the coal mines, Thomas and his family were once again miners, but they had a fairly happy life for several years.  Thomas’s sons, Will, John and Thomas joined their father in the mines once again, but not all of the boys continued in the mining business, finding it to be difficult and dreary work.  

            Another son, Wilford David Evans was born, May 15^th, 1895 at Fruitland, New Mexico.  Thomas was appointed 1^st Assistant in the Sunday School to William G. Black, Superintendent.  

            Five years later on May 11, 1899, the family minus oldest son Will who was working in another area, traveled to Salt Lake to be endowed and sealed.  Accompanying them were the rest of the children, John, Thomas Henry, Sylvia, Mary Ellen, Edwin Charles, and Wilford David.  Thomas wrote: “My wife [Jane Ann] was sick.  We went in a wagon and arrived at Salt Lake on June the 7^th.  We stayed 2 months.  Got back to Fruitland Sept. 6^th.  Sister Evans did not improve much in health.”  Thomas and Jane Ann were sealed 27 June 1899 in the Salt Lake Temple. 

            Jane Ann had begun to show increasing symptoms of circulatory problems and heart failure.  The trip to Salt Lake by wagon did little to improve her general condition, although it was her husband’s hope that the trip, the work in the temple, and the extended visit with her father and stepmother in Salt Lake would somehow cause her condition to improve. As the months dragged on, she could not lie down.  Her legs and ankles began to swell with fluid, and her anxious, grieving husband began to see the light of his life flicker away from him.  Thomas recorded, “1 [one]  month before she died 2 sisters of the Relief Society came and stayed all the time; she was sick until she died October 29, 1902 at 3:25 p.m., aged 47 years, 11 months, 6 days.”   She was buried in the Kirtland-Fruitland cemetery in the northwest corner on the first day of November, 1902.

            Thomas’ grandson, Richard P. Evans records, “of all the hardships visited upon Thomas Evans, this was the worst.  Time heals all but the deepest mourning.  For many years after the passing of his wife, Thomas slipped into a reverie, elbows resting on knees, large, work-worn hands clasped together to go back in memory to the happy days that Jane Ann was beside him, her gentle voice and ready smile easing the struggle of life.  I do not imply that he did not enjoy life in those latter years; his ready wit and genuine laugh came to hand easily.  But he missed his beloved Jane Ann more than he could ever find words to express.”

            By 1911, all but the two youngest children of Thomas and Jane Ann had married.  Thomas had left the coal mines in Fruitland and was working at a smelter in Durango, Colorado.  On August 5, 1911 at Kline,Colorado, he was married to Emmagin Hurd Carner Creath and they lived in a modest frame home in Durango.  She was called “the old lady”, a term not used in disrespect but merely to differentiate between her and the irreplaceable Jane Ann.  She passed away on 29 October 1924 at Redmesa, Colorado.  She was born in New York City, baptized into the Church on March 11, 1911 by Max Black.  She received her vicarious endowments in the Salt Lake Temple the 28^th of June 1938.  Her first husband was Jerome Carner.  Before her death she said she did not wish to be sealed to Thomas Evans, but to second husband, David Creath. 

            Thomas Evans was now too old at the age of 73 to find further employment.  His foreman at the Durango smelter had said, “Tommie, I think the world of you, and hate to tell you this, but you’re too old; we can’t use you any more.”  He then lived with children at Kline and Redmesa, Colorado and Monticello, Utah, but seemed to prefer living at Shiprock, New Mexico with his oldest son Will and wife Sarah.

            At Shiprock Will built a little one-room cabin for Thomas, and there he had his little but very loud radio, a cast iron stove where he boiled eggs and toasted bread.  He had a short-handled ball-pin hammer with which he broke up coal into small chunks for the stove and in the winter he heated a fairly large boulder in the stove which he wrapped in an old Navajo saddle blanket to warm up his bed.  Thomas had a garden (which he pronounced “Gairden”) where he raised fine vegetables which he sold to people in the community to keep himself in a little pocket money.             He continued to walk for long distances, although he loved to take trips to wherever the family car was going. Often he would walk a distance of 20 miles to visit friends and relatives.  He spoke both Welsh and English fluently, and often sought out friends with whom he could converse in Welsh.

             His hearing was poor by now, and his eyesight troubled him as he aged.  One eye grew bad although it never lost its clear blue color.  He described the difficulty as, “like looking into a bright light”.  He wrote to his children and grandchildren in his ninety-first year, “without the aid of eye glasses,” he boasted.  He was an avid reader, and in his later years used a magnifying glass to aid his eyesight.

            Thomas Evans was a man of strong testimony.  Even in the closing years of his life he bore a powerful testimony.  His prayers were fervent and eloquent as he stood at the rostrum in church, right hand raised to the square, eyes closed, voice rolling forth in supplication to the Lord.  

            His grandson, Ralph Evans wrote the following about Thomas: “There was a quality about Grandpa Evans that gave me much satisfaction: he never feared what anyone might say about the Church.  He knew it was founded upon truth.  He did not need any sermons on some far-away kingdom caught up in the air, or fanciful stories to prove to him that he had joined the right Church.  I am sure that all of the scientific lecture in this world could not have been as impressive as his humble testimonies that he gave to us when we would take the time to listen to him.”  And, “what an example of kindness and consideration he had for all people.  I never saw in him a time of doubt as to the truth of the Gospel which he embraced, not only for himself, but also for future posterity.  And I am grateful for this blessing which he and others gave to me and to mine - membership in the Church and Kingdom of God on the earth!”      

            Thomas was musically talented, taking charge of congregational singing both in Wales and in America.  He capably played the concertina, a small octagon-shaped accordion.  He was an oft-invited speaker at the Indian School in Shiprock where he spoke to students and played his concertina, swinging the instrument up and down and in a circle as he played a stirring Welsh folk song. 

            He had a quick wit and fine sense of humor. At one time a Reverend Holcomb of the Emmanuel Mission near Sweetwater, Arizona asked Thomas, “Grandpa, do you fear the Lord?”  Thomas pondered the question a moment.  “No,” he replied quietly, “I don’t fear the Lord.  It’s that other booger I’m afraid of.”

            Thomas remained physically active to the end of his long life.  He spent most of his last mortal day in Farmington, New Mexico with his son Will.  He became ill there but it seemed to pass off and they returned home.  Early that evening he again complained of illness, and about eleven o’clock at night on the seventh day of January, 1942, he passed away in the presence of his son.   His grandson Ralph and Ralph’s uncle, William J. Walker of Kirtland, New Mexico, washed the body next morning and dressed him in his temple robes. A modest casket was obtained from a mortuary in Farmington in which Thomas’ mortal remains were placed.  He was taken to Kirtland to the home of his daughter, Sylvia Evans Black where he lay in state until the time of his funeral on the morning of the 9^th of January at the Ward Chapel in Kirtland.  He was buried beside his beloved Jane Ann in the Kirtland Cemetery.       

The above information was excerpted from a manuscript entitled A Biography of Thomas Evans by his grandson, Richard P. Evans; 1973.