| |
08824
November 7, 2008
Notes about people
The Rev. Louis H. Evans Jr., the organizing pastor of Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles who went on to pastor the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, died Oct. 29 at his home in Fresno, CA. He was 82 and had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Born June 20, 1926, Evans was one of four children of Marie and the Rev. Louis H. Evans Sr., the longtime pastor of Hollywood Presbyterian Church who built that congregation into one of the Protestant denomination's largest in the 1950s. He graduated from Occidental College before serving in the Navy during World War II.
Evans was ordained in 1953 after studying at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the University of Edinburgh. He was asked to organize a new church in Bel Air and Bel Air Presbyterian Church was chartered in September 1956. By the time Evans left in 1963 for La Jolla CA, and then Washington in 1973, Bel Air had 700 members.
After retiring in 1991, Evans returned to California and assisted at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church before moving to Fresno, where his son, Jamie is pastor at First Presbyterian Church.
Evans is also survived by his wife of nearly 58 years, Colleen; sons Dan, a lawyer who lives in Washington state, and Tim, a doctor in Fresno; a daughter, Luanda Goodrich of Atlanta, who married a pastor; nine grandchildren; and his two sisters, Lolly Deats and Marily Demarest.
A memorial service was held Nov. 1 at First Presbyterian Church of Fresno.
|
