Dave Evans Jr.
leaves behind a
storied legac

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Submitted photos

He loved Louis L’Amour novels, John Wayne movies and his family. He was an honest man who never borrowed money, who helped his neighbors and was strict with his kids. A witty man with a dry sense of humor. A hard worker who believed in giving an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

This is how family and friends remember David Shepherd Evans Jr., owner of Greensport Marina, who died March 12 at the age of 91.

He was one of the last two ferrymen to shuttle people and their vehicles back and forth across the Coosa River. The other was his father, Dave Sr., who continued to operate the Greensport Ferry without his son’s help until the late 1950s.

“Dave Sr. took over operation of the ferry in the mid-1940s, and Dad helped him until 1957, when he went to work for Republic Steel in Gadsden,” says daughter Beth Evans Smith. “It gave him time to spend with his father.”

Dave Jr., known as Pop within the family, had told one of his ferry customers that he was going to look for another job because he had a baby on the way. Little did he know that the customer was the personnel manager at Republic. “He told Dad to be at the mill at a certain time, and when Dad got there, the man hired him,” Beth says.

The original Green’s Ferry was located on the banks of the Coosa River across from the home of former Revolutionary War soldier Jacob Green, built in 1832. That’s the same year the ferry was chartered to deliver mail. Pulled first by slaves and later by mules, by Dave Sr.’s day it was propelled with a small skiff powered by a six-horsepower outboard motor. The ferry took folks from Green’s Port (later Greensport) across the Coosa River to a point a few miles from Ohatchee.

The land attached to Greensport Marina was designated a Bicentennial Farm by the U.S. Department of Agriculture two years ago because it has been in the same family for eight generations. Dave Jr. was a direct descendent of Jacob Green, and his grandchildren make up the eighth generation.

The farm

The farm spans three counties and a couple of centuries. It is in St. Clair, Etowah and Calhoun counties. “It was also recognized as a Century and Heritage Farm by the Alabama Department of Agriculture,” Beth says. “Being a Bicentennial Farm is icing on the cake.”

The Century Farm designation is awarded to farms that have been in the same family continuously for at least 100 years and are currently being used for farming activities. A Heritage Farm must have been used as a family farm for at least 100 years and possess historical significance, including at least one structure standing for 40 years or more. Each type of farm must be at least 40 acres, and the owner must live in Alabama. The Green-Evans farm is about 1,200 acres.

Dave Jr. and his father raised cattle and corn, although they downsized their herd after losing more than 400 acres of prime pasture to the damming of the Coosa in 1966. They also had a store at Greensport and at one time warehouses and a post office.

Dam doesn’t stand in his way

“My grandfather built the marina, but my dad and I went with him to the meetings with Alabama Power Company,” Beth says. “My dad had to do much of the physical work on the farm because my grandfather was not in good health. He was a diabetic and so was my dad.”

A visionary back in the 1960s, he could see the marina in that cow pasture, and built it before the waters were dammed and covered the land. “That was just as much Dad as grand,” says Dave III. “They built the marina for my granddad to have something to do in retirement, but it was Dad’s foresight that made it work. He was on a dozer the day they put the plug in (the dam). He went out there to knock a pile of dirt down, but before he could leave, the water was up to the top of the tracks on the dozer.”

Dave Evans Sr. was elected sheriff of St. Clair County in 1958, and the ferry was no longer operational by then. “Dad was a deputy sheriffwhen my grandfather was sheriff,” says Beth. “Hence his nickname at Republic, which followed him when Republic became LTV and then Gulf State Steel, was Sheriff. He was brave and would take on Goliath if necessary. His experience with the sheriff’s office helped us many times dealing with the public at the marina.”

Always on the go

When her father retired from Gulf State Steel in 1993, Beth thought he would be lost, but he never looked back. “He started going to the stockyards with my brother, Dave III, who is a veterinarian, and helping him with the cattle,” she says.

A man who didn’t believe in borrowing money, he had no credit or debit cards. “He believed in paying cash as you go,” she says. “If you didn’t have the money you shouldn’t buy. If he wanted or needed something he could ‘find’ the money because he stuck it away.”

Her brother, Dave III, says their father was the tightest human being he’s ever known. “I’d give him money to keep for me, and I’d get the very same bills back,” he says. “Dad was pretty thrifty with his money. Also, he kept his word. If he said he was going to do something, he’d do it.”

Beth says her father was strong-willed, too. After he retired, he developed a blood clot in his brain. He had surgery and recovered. “He was tough as nails,” Beth says. “He also survived a collision with a loaded log truck on the way home from Moulton Stockyard. He and my brother came out of that without a scratch, but the veterinary truck was totaled, including every bottle of medicine.”

A hard worker all of his life,at the age of 12, he was in the coal mines in Bibb County. His father’s family were miners in West Blockton, Margaret and Acmar.

“My Dad told stories about driving trucks, falling into the coal shoot, blind-folding the mules when taking them from the mines, and that you didn’t kill the rats and mice because they were your best friends,” Beth says. “When the varmints started running out of the mine you had better be right behind them (because) something was going to happen.” Her mother, Margaret, was a hard worker, too. He was devastated when she died of cancer in 2012. “They were very close,” Beth says.

One of his former co-workers at the steel mill, Bill Lankford, says that in the 37 years Dave Jr. worked at Republic/LTV/Gulf State, he never laid out except when he was in the hospital. “When he was on the morning shift, he would always arrive 30 minutes early and make the coffee. He was very dedicated to his family, his co-workers and his job.” The pair were two of the three men who worked in Republic’s pulpit, their name for the glass-walled computer control room.

“He believed in us working at the marina, too,” Beth says. “We never took family vacations unless we visited our relatives in Foley or Tuscumbia.” Dave Jr. furnished CB radios for the family and workers to communicate with each other around the marina, and later low-band business radios in the trucks. Their 199-foot, low-band tower finally fell this year.

Dave III says when Pop retired, he started helping him in his mobile veterinary business. “For the last 20 plus years, he’d go to the stockyards and different places with me where I would do Coggins tests,” Dave III says. “I have fond memories of him just riding with me everywhere and helping me do the paperwork at the sales.” Dr. Dave Evans III has the South’s only traveling federal veterinary lab, and the pair would go to horse sales that needed immediate results on blood tests.

There was no mistaking his love of country. Beth says her dad never missed an opportunity to vote. He told her and her brother that voting was an obligation. “Don’t complain about anything if you don’t vote,” she remembers him saying. “He said many people gave up a portion of their lives for us to vote and many gave their lives. I don’t miss an election! He served in the Air Force during the Korean War but was released early because his father was ill and as an only child, Dad was needed to run the farm.”

An honest man who “told you like it was,” what you saw in him was what you got. “There was nothing fake about my Dad,” Beth says.

A fan of Westerns

“Dave really enjoyed Westerns, and in the 1950s, he would come to our house to watch them on TV with my father while his wife, Margaret, visited with my mom,” says Margaret Green, one of Dave’s cousins. “The mountains around his home prevented him from having TV reception, but on the hill at Lock 1 where I lived, the reception was good. I hardly ever saw Dave without a Western novel somewhere close. His favorite author seemed to have been Louis L’Amour.”

Beth says he read every book written by L’Amour and had more than one copy of some of them. He also read Ralph Compton, the Western author from Odenville, and others, and enjoyed the newspaper and the Shotgun News. His favorite actors were John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.

A strong will

Another attribute that set him apart was his ability to accept the cards he was dealt. One example was the way he quit smoking: cold turkey. “It was like he was a chain smoker one day and the next day he threw the cigarettes away,” Beth says. “Also, from the moment he was diagnosed with diabetes, he knew what had to be done. Momma changed the way she cooked, and daddy stayed on a strict diet. He didn’t have the issues other diabetics have, such as loss of eyesight, amputation of limbs, sores not healing and constant fluctuations in his blood sugar levels. He was diagnosed in 1972-73 and lived with the disease 50 years.”

The blood clot developed in 1993, and Dave Sr. went on a honeymoon period of 10 years without insulin. Then he began to lose weight and had to start on insulin again. “In his last years he had aFib,” Beth says. “He fell out at the barn and lay there several hours before being found. When he went to rehab the second time, he got pneumonia and from then on, his health started spiraling downward. As a result, he had to have care 24/7.”

Dave III probably handled 70-80 percent of the night shifts with Pop the last few years of his life, but his son made sure Pop’s daytime caregivers drove him around various places each day. “I wouldn’t want to be sitting staring at four walls all the time,” Dave says. “Pop’s mental state the last year wasn’t the best, but he still enjoyed conversing with folks.”

Stephanie Evans, wife of Dave III, describes her father-in-law as “one of the most business-minded, innovative people that have been on the property.

“Throughout the building of this RV park, which opened in 2019, my father-in-law was my biggest encourager,” she says, tears welling up at the memories. “He was wheelchair-bound toward the end, but his caregiver would bring him by the office every day. Four days before he died, he said, ‘Stephanie, I can’t see out of this eye, and this side of my face is paralyzed,’ and I said, ‘Pop, do you see the good side or the bad side of me?’ And he said, ‘I always see the good side.’”

Pop would sit in a rocker on the front porch of the office, and Stephanie, who works in the park office, would leave the door open so they could converse. Often, he would have his caregiver drive him through park to see the changes. “He loved to talk to people at the store and boat ramp, especially about the history of the place,” Stephanie says. “He was a pleasant man to be around.”

Stephanie says her relationship with her father-in-law was one of best friends rather than in-laws. “I took him to lots of doctors’ appointments,” she says. “My husband and I had this joke. I used to say to my husband, ‘Your daddy made my day. Sorry it wasn’t you.’ When Pop died, my husband said, ‘Well, gotta step up my game.’”

“My goal is to continue his legacy in how he’d want the property to move forward.”

Nothing’s sweeter than
life on the lake … with
a baker and a griller

Story by Scottie Vickery
Photos by Kelsey Bain and Graham Hadley

If it’s a weekend in the summer, chances are good there’s going to be a crowd at Leigh and Jeff Gardner’s Neely Henry Lake home in Ohatchee.

The sparkling water, the lure of a boat ride and the promise of some crappie fishing are pretty good draws, but more than likely, the group is coming for the food. Jeff’s probably got some hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, wings in the fryer or ribs on the smoker, but Leigh’s desserts are the main attraction. “I’ve been baking since I was a teenager,” she said. “Jeff says I snagged him with my chocolate cake.”

Whether it’s cakes, cookies, sweet breads or fudge, Leigh has pretty much mastered it all. In fact, her baked goods got such rave reviews from friends that she took their advice and started a side gig. “I was always making things and taking them to work; it’s just one of the things I like to do to make it a great work environment,” said Leigh, a pharmacist at Quick Meds Express Pharmacy in Oxford. “The girls at work kept saying, ‘You need to sell these.’”

Now, she gets frequent requests for her cinnamon walnut bread, her strawberry cheesecake bread with strawberry butter, as well as a variety of cakes, cookies and other treats. “People like to give them as gifts,” she said. “I’ve gotten orders on top of orders.”

It’s in the genes

Right off Leigh’s kitchen that overlooks the water is a coffee bar with a bin of snacks hanging above it. The chips are a hit with her two daughters and their friends, but it’s her great-grandmother’s coffee cups and sugar bowl that warm Leigh’s heart. The china cabinet and buffet are filled with family treasures, and her great-great-grandmother’s dough bowl has a place of honor in the center of the table.

Family is important to Leigh, and she has wonderful memories of growing up and helping her mom and both grandmothers in the kitchen. “Growing up, peanut butter cookies were my specialty,” she said. “That was my thing, and I still use the same recipe from way back when.”

History has a way of repeating itself, and these days, 10-year-old Elise loves to help her mom in the kitchen. “I crack the eggs because Mama’s not that good at that,” she said. “She gets eggshells in there.” Brooklyn, 15, isn’t a big fan of kitchen duty, but she’s always a more-than-willing taster. “Most everything she makes is pretty good,” the teenager acknowledged.

Lots of folks seem to agree, based on the requests she gets after she started selling her breads, cakes and cookies last December. She started by offering her cinnamon walnut bread on Facebook, and the next thing she knew, she was taking orders and making deliveries.

Sweet success

“The plan was to do bread, but then I had one client ask if I could bake a certain cake,” Leigh said. “I baked it for her, and her family loved it. Then she wanted me to do macaroons and a few other things. I like different things that challenge me.”

Although she’s got a collection of favorite recipes, she’s always on the hunt for more. “I look up a lot of stuff online and then I tweak it to where I want it to be,” she said. “People give me recipes now, and I love it. I like to have a story with it.”

While she takes lots of orders, Leigh often posts on Facebook when she’s got extra loaves or cakes that are fresh from the oven. Some days it’s salted caramel or butterscotch bread, and some days it’s chocolate pecan, banana walnut or sourdough. Her regular breads sell for $15, and the breads that come with strawberry butter or honey cinnamon butter are $20. Cookies are $15 a dozen, and cakes start at $40.

Although the Facebook offerings get claimed quickly, most of her customers aren’t picky – they’ll take whatever they can get and they’re willing to wait. “A lot of people just say, ‘Whenever you do your next batch, make me a strawberry cheesecake,’” she said. “Around the holidays, I got a lot of last-minute orders. People would ask what I had available, and I usually have something for them.”

Leigh has an extra fridge on the back porch and a freezer in the garage for just such emergencies. “I make a lot of things ahead of time and freeze them,” she said. “They’re just as good as the day you make them.”

So, what’s her secret? It starts with her homemade vanilla, which she makes by soaking vanilla beans in vodka for six to eight weeks. “It makes everything taste better,” she said. “I make bottles and give them as gifts at Christmas.”

Another weapon is the different starters for her breads. She uses a mixture of flour, sugar, milk, yeast and water, allows it to ferment and “feeds” it every five days by adding more of the ingredients. She’s had the same batch of starter going for four or five years now, and she uses it for the cinnamon walnut bread and her carrot cake.

Although Leigh never intended to start a business when she baked for her co-workers, she’s enjoyed making her breads and desserts for family, friends and her growing list of customers. “It’s been crazy,” she said. “Every evening I’ll come in from my full-time job, mix something up and bake it. A lot of mornings, I’ll mix up some bread, and it’s ready by the time I’m out the door at 8:15.”

Just add water

On the mornings she’s not baking, Leigh loves to get up early, walk the dogs and enjoy the scenery. The Gardners moved into their lakeside home last September, and even though they had lived in a house with a view of the lake for years, they’re still discovering the joys of being right on the water.

“We love it here,” Leigh said. “We went out in the boat all the time before, but we had to pack up the car and drive to get the boat. Now we can just walk down, get on the boat and go.”

Fishing is a lot easier these days, too. “We can go anytime we want,” she said. “The other night we fished off the pier until almost 10 o’clock.”

Leigh and Jeff, a driver for UPS, said their new home is an answer to prayer. Jeff was driving his route one day when he saw a sign in the front yard. “We had just ridden over here on the boat and said, ‘Man, I wish they’d put that house up for sale,’” he said. “That was Sunday, and I was over here Wednesday. I called Leigh and said, ‘You’re not going to believe it.’”        

Their old house “was in binocular’s distance” to their new one, Jeff said, but the ease of walking out the back door to head for the water can’t be beat. “We loved both places,” he said, “but this is a whole lot more convenient.”  

Want to taste some of Leigh’s breads and desserts yourself? Find her on Facebook at facebook.com/leigh.fordham to place your order.

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Cranberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp vanilla
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
• ½ cup cranberries
• ½ cup pecans
• ½ cup white chocolate chips

Combine butter, brown sugar and sugar. Then add egg and vanilla, and mix well. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, and mix well. Add remaining ingredients one at a time and then mix well.

Chill dough 2-4 hours or overnight. Drop onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.

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Bread Starter

• ¼ cup warm water
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk

Combine water and yeast and let mixture sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Mix flour, sugar and milk together and add yeast mixture. Put the starter in a gallon-sized plastic1 bag or a plastic container and let it sit on the counter for five days (do not refrigerate).

After the first five days, add 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. After five more days (and every five days after) add ½ cup milk, ½ cup flour and ½ cup sugar.

For best results, let the starter ferment for 2-3 weeks before using. Save 1 cup of starter after making the bread and repeat the feeding accordingly.

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Honey Cinnamon Butter

• ½ cup (1 stick) salted butter
• ¼ cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp. honey
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp salt

Add ingredients one at a time and mix well. Store butter in the refrigerator. Toast or microwave cinnamon walnut bread slices and spread butter on top. Enjoy!

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Cinnamon Walnut Bread

Cinnamon Walnut Bread

(Makes two loaves)

• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup milk
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 boxes instant vanilla pudding
• 1-2 cups walnuts
• 1 cup bread starter

Mix all ingredients well and pour into two greased loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

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St. Louis-style Ribs

• 1 package St. Louis Style ribs
• Salt
• Rub of your choice
• Garlic powder
• Hickory wood chunks

Boil ribs in a pot of water with salt for about 30

minutes. Cover the ribs in a barbecue rub of your choice and garlic powder.

Put ribs on smoker, but don’t place them directly on the fire. Add some hickory chunks. Cook for about 3 hours. Eat them plain or dip in your favorite barbecue sauce.