Hamilton Hayes Howard Evans (24 October 1917–20 March 1981), preservationist, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and was the daughter of Hamilton Griswold Hayes Howard and Yoder Poignand Howard, who worked as a secretary at a storage company and later in the real estate department at a bank. She worked as a feature writer and columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal and spent a few years in New York as a copy writer for various advertising agencies. On 12 January 1946 in Louisville she married Sandidge Evans, a physician. They had two daughters and one son. Disliking her given name, she usually called herself Mrs. Sandidge Evans and was known informally as Sis Evans.

In 1952 Evans and her family settled in Hampton, Virginia, where she became involved in local history, environmental, and cultural organizations. In 1960 the city council appointed her chair of the Hampton Tour Committee. The following year she helped found the Hampton Cultural Heritage Committee and as its executive secretary emphasized the city's cultural history and its historic sites. In 1967 Evans helped establish the Hampton Association for the Arts and Humanities, of which she became associate director in 1974. Its organizers worked to ensure that the association represented the interests of all members of Hampton's community and tried to bring together the African American and white populations of the city. Through the HAAH, Evans conducted research and wrote a proposal that resulted in a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund archaeological excavations in the Hampton area. She often volunteered for archaeological fieldwork and in October 1965 helped found the Kicotan Chapter of the Archeological Society of Virginia.

During the 1970s Evans turned her attention to the nation's approaching bicentennial celebration. Appointed chair of Hampton's Bicentennial Committee in 1971, she also served as a representative on the Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission. The commission praised the Hampton Association for the Arts and Humanities for its efforts to highlight the contributions of African Americans during the American Revolution. Under the theme "Live History Where It Happened," Hampton's committee hosted a wide variety of events in the years leading up to the bicentennial commemoration, including displays of finds from archaeological digs that the HAAH had sponsored. Evans saw the bicentennial celebration as an opportunity to improve civic pride, to increase tourism in Hampton, and to stimulate the local economy.

Evans wrote and illustrated Lost Landmarks of Old Hampton, Revolutionary War Port Town (1976), a booklet that highlighted a number of sites associated with African American history. In 1977 she founded the city's first integrated historical society, the Hampton Heritage Foundation, which provided her a vehicle to focus on the city's historical interests through sponsoring and planning archaeological digs, raising funds for the preservation of historic buildings, and creating exhibitions on the city's history. The foundation also served as a research facility. Evans helped steer scholars to source material, most notably Robert F. Engs, whose book Freedom's First Generations: Black Hampton, Virginia, 1861–1890 (1979) was the first scholarly treatment of the contraband enslaved persons who sought freedom in and around Hampton during the Civil War.

In April 1980 the local chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution paid tribute to Evans's preservation efforts with its Medal of Honor. The following year the city of Hampton gave Evans and her family the William H. Trusty House, the 1897 residence of a successful African American businessman, with the stipulation that they complete its restoration. Evans had led the drive that resulted in its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Hamilton Hayes Howard Evans died at her Hampton home on 20 March 1981 and was buried at Parklawn Memorial Park.

Sources Consulted:
Biographical information provided by Hampton Heritage Foundation (1983), Dictionary of Virginia Biography Files; other information provided by Jeanne Zeidler (2007); Jefferson Co., Ky., Marriage License; Newport News Daily Press, 5 Jan. 1971, 13 July 1974; birth and death dates in Death Certificate, Hampton, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Richmond, Va.; obituary and editorial tribute in Newport News Daily Press, 21 (portrait), 22 Mar. 1981; Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 4 Apr. 2022.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Rachel Donaldson Muse.

How to cite this page:
Rachel Donaldson Muse, "Hamilton Hayes Howard Evans (1917–1981)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2023 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Evans_Hamilton_Sis, accessed [today's date]).

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