Page 41 - South Mississippi Living - March, 2019

and sketched them off, and then we painted them in,” Mary Bet said. “All my children came and did a part here and a part there. They’d say ‘I can fill them in, and you have to come and make them into art.’”
They used exterior house paint to create the piece. Davis, who had Mary Bet as a teacher and went to high school with Liz Evans, created a work space in the west end of the old L&N Depot for the painting project.
“The air-conditioning isn’t great
in there, so I brought her an old box fan when it was really hot. But Miss Mary Bet is a strong old bird. She has inspired so many others, and she won’t take credit for it,” Davis said.
A native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, Mary Bet took art classes while
attending the
University of
Mississippi. She
married her high
school sweetheart,
Stanley Evans, after
college and they
eventually made their
home in Pascagoula. She began teaching full time when her children grew older, and had 27 years in when she retired as an English teacher at Pascagoula High School in 2000. Two years earlier, her husband had died at the age of 63.
After her retirement, she took her first watercolor class from the late Betty Magee of Ocean Springs. “I just loved it. We had such a wonderful time in that class in Pascagoula,” Mary
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Mary Bet Evans with her children, from left, Liz Evans, Catherine Miller, Stan Evans, Mary Bet, Melissa Davis and Mary Terrell Brooks.
Bet said.
She is a member of the Singing River
Art Association as well as the Ocean Springs Art Association where she belongs to The Art House. She will have a one-woman show at The Art House Feb. 23-April 5.
Main Street Pascagoula will host a dedication of “Pascagoula, Our Town” later this spring, Davis said. The design will be printed on t-shirts to be sold as a fundraiser. “There is a lot of love in this mural,” Davis said.
story by Susan Ruddiman photos courtesy of Liz Evans