Evaline Carter Blevins

Evaline Blevins is buried at Walnut Grove Baptist Church in Hays, NC. Her tombstone provides a birthdate of October 27, 1832, and a death date of June 23, 1914.

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Evaline is buried beside her daughter-in-law, Katherine, with Evaline's son Millard on the other side of Katherine. 

Evaline, whose name is sometimes spelled variously as Evoline (such as her tombstone) or Eveline, was married to John S. Blevins and the mother of three sons, William, John Floyd and Millard Monroe Blevins.

No information has been found about the marriage of John and Evaline among North Carolina Marriage Records. New River Notes, a web site of historical and genealogical resources for the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina and Virginia, provides the only information obtained thus far concerning the marriage of John Blevins and Evaline Carter. Their marriage date is listed as October 15, 1869, and the source is "other material, pension applications, family Bibles, etc."

Evaline appears to be the daughter of Isaac Carter and wife Sarah, who were in Ashe County in 1860, and in Surry County in 1850.

Multiple online family trees state that Evalin Carter married Bartlett Blevins in December 1865. However, this was definitely a different Evalin Carter, not a previous marriage for Evaline.

Evaline was the second wife of John S. Blevins, a man about thirty years her senior. John was first married to Nancy Pruitt, with whom he had seven children, including five daughters and two sons. One of those sons, Ralph, was listed on the 1870 census as "insane" and the 1880 census as "idiotic" and "insane".  As painful as we find that terminology today, the Supplemental Schedules for the Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes of the 1880 census provide the information that Ralph had typhus fever at the age of four.

How old was Evaline's husband? He was listed as age 65 in 1870, and 84 in 1880, a difference of 19 years in a decade. The 1850 and 1860 census suggests a birthdate of 1800-1801, indicating that he was several years older than stated in 1870, and several years younger than stated in 1880. 

Evaline's first child was born in August of 1870. The date of the 1870 census was July, with John Blevins, age 65; Evaline Blevins, age 38; and Ralph, age 32. Evaline must have been about seven months pregnant when the census-taker visited.

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By the 1880 census, John, age 84; his wife "Elvira",  age 48; and John's four sons were living in the household - Ralph, age 42; William, age 9; John F., age 7; and Millard M., age 5. (Based upon a birthdate of around 1800, John was 65, 67, and 70 when his last three sons were born.)

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In February 1882, John Blevins wrote a will naming his wife Evaline as executrix. He left his real estate and personal property to Evaline for her lifetime, and after her death, to his three infant children, William, John and Millard. (In legal terms, "infants" means minor children.) He stated that no part of his estate should go to his children with his first wife whose name was Nancy, for the reason that he had already given them as much of his property and estate as he intended them to have.

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No mention was made about provisions for Ralph. North Carolina did not keep death records until 1909, and no death record has been found for Ralph. No tombstone, either.

In May 1891, the will of John Blevins was submitted for probate. At age 58, Evaline was a widow. The burial location of John Blevins is unknown. He died before Walnut Grove Baptist Church was built in its current location, and is not buried with his second wife, Evaline. The burial location is not known for his first wife, Nancy, so he may be buried beside her.

With no extant 1890 census, in 1900 Evaline was living with her son Millard and his wife Katherine (and beside whom she is buried.) Evaline has not been located in the 1910 census, although her three boys are listed as living side by side. If her tombstone gives the correct date for her death, she was 81 at her death.

Evaline Carter Blevins was the mother of "Granddaddy John", who was my mother-in-law's grandfather.