This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Evans Chambers Joplin Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/FMB.2ACE/2302.3 Message Board Post: Sedalia Daily Democrat, Wednesday, October 14, 1874, p. 4 In Memoriam But a short time since the city papers informed us of the death of one of our oldest citizens, Dr. Thomas Evans, at his residence, in the town of Smithton, Pettis County, Mo. His death was not unexpected by his friends, as he had been failing for months. Still the death of such a man cannot but produce a thread of heartache in the community where his person was so long known, and his presence so often felt, as the harbinger of relief and comfort to the anxious attendant on a bed of sickness and suffering. Dr. Evans was for many years the only educated physician in this part of Pettis county, having settled in this county in 1842, at a time when a few scattered settlements along the borders of the creeks making the population of the county. From the time of his advent his practices became extensive and owing to the sparsely settled population, very laborious. Among his patrons he was universally loved for his plain and unpretentious manners; his ardent devotion to his profession, and his tender regard for the whims and caprices (so trying to the busy practioner) of his patients. But few of his earlier patrons are among us now, most of them having preceded the Doctor to the better land; but the few that remains speak of him in terms of the warmest praise. To the young aspirant for professional success, the Doctor was always affable, courteous, never regarding him as a rival, but as one to whom the helping hand of age and experience was due, and by him always cheerfully extended. The last two or three years of the Doctor's life were years of patient, uncomplaining suffering. No especial disease, but the general break-down of health, incident somewhat, to approaching age; but more especially the result of long, continued and frequent exposure necessary in an extended practice among a scattered population. Dr. Evans was born in Prince George County, Maryland on the 21st of October, 1805, wanting but a few days, when he died, of completing his 69th year. He read medicine under Dr. H________(illegible) of Washington City and graduated at Columbia College, District of Columbia, in 1827. Married his first wife (the mother of Dr. Edward C. Evans), Miss D.A. Chambers in 1828 and in 1832 emigrated to Missouri, settling in Cooper county, in whas has since been known as the Walker settlement. Having lost his first wife, he married Mrs. Susan J. Joplin, subsequently the mother of Nancy Evans, in 1837, and moved to Pettis county in 1842, where he continued to reside until his death. Immediately after the organization of the Pettis Couny medical society, Dr. Evans became a member, and when his health permitted, was a regular attendant at its meetings, often participating in its discussions, giving to its members the benefit of his long experience in the treatment of the diseases peculiar to the county, at his death the society passed resolutions highly commendatory of his standing as a physician and excellence as a man. His death was calm and peaceful, in full possession of his mental faculties to the last moment, after talking to his friends and family, of the firm and blissful hope of a happy immortality that enabled him to meet, the long expected hour of parting, with not only the fortitude of the philosophy, but with the brighter, happier hope of the christian. Requiescat in pace. M.D.