GENEVA — Talking to Lloyd Evans is like taking a walk through history. Being alive for a full century provides that sort of perspective.
The longtime Geneva resident and World War II veteran turned 100 years old Feb. 22. Surrounded by his family for a joyous celebration, he spent a little time sharing some of his life’s stories with the Finger Lakes Times. To add to the fun, Evans has a fabulous sense of humor and shares his stories with bright-eyed enthusiasm.
He was born in Glendale, Pa., and moved with his family to Corning in 1938 when his father began working at Corning Hospital. Evans started working at Corning Glass Works when he was about 13 years old. He chuckled at the fact that the factory hired him illegally, according to New York labor laws for minors.
In 1944, at the age of 18, Evans began his tenure as a Navy man in World War II. Traveling from Corning to the east shore of Seneca Lake, Evans undertook his basic training at Sampson Naval Training Station in Romulus, which functioned as an important hub during World War II. The station also ran a large Naval hospital.
After basic training, he headed out with a large cohort to New York City’s historic Brooklyn Naval Yard; shortly thereafter, he was transferred to the 12th Naval District on Treasure Island in the Bay Area.
The war
“We were in a big shipment out of New York, a whole load of Navy guys,” he remembered. “We were sent to San Francisco. We went to Oakland first. That’s where they did all their checking you over, giving all your vaccines. I mean, you got a ton of them. Then we went to Treasure Island.”
“I ended up in the Marine Corps,” continued Evans, noting he became a part of the Marine Corps Guard. “I was the only Navy guy, and the rest were all Marines that had already been there. I was transferred in and stationed on Yerba Buena Island, where the San Francisco-Oakland bridge runs. That was an Army base at one time. They still had the gun tubs and everything left up in there.”
1944 marked a year of epic confrontations with the Japanese in the Pacific Theater.
“There were some hard Naval battles during that year,” Evans reflected. “Bull Halsey was one of the great American heroes.”
Evans was referring to Adm. William “Bull” Halsey, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet during the Battle of Cape Engaño on Oct. 25, 1944.
Evans said Halsey followed a decoy unit of Japanese carriers north, away from the San Bernardino Strait in the Philippines, which Halsey’s fleet had been guarding. Halsey sank all four carriers in the decoy fleet, but it left ships that remained in the Strait vulnerable, Evans noted.
The centenarian remembered a big storm in 1944, named Typhoon Cobra. It is also called Typhoon Halsey because Halsey’s Third Fleet got caught in the storm, causing three of his fleet’s destroyers to capsize.
Post-war
Evans was honorably discharged in 1946 and headed back to Corning. His father laid down the law.
“He said, ‘In a couple of weeks, you’ll be working, or you’re out of here,’” Lloyd recalled.
Evans went back to work at Corning Glass Works — and got busy shaping the direction of his life. His choices would lead to a life of distinguished service as a professional nurse at Willard State Hospital in Ovid, with a short stint at West Seneca State Hospital in Buffalo.
At the prompting of a friend of one of his brothers, Evans completed his high school education through a school for veterans in record time and, by 1949, he began nursing school at Willard State Hospital.
“Well, first of all, the fact that you wrote to Willard shows you’re not playing with a full deck,” Evans said while laughing at himself, “because that was an insane asylum.
“They had a good nursing program run by the state, and they took 10 girls and 10 boys every year,” he added, joking that in his first year as a student, nurses were called “bedpan commandos.”
“You had to know how to make beds and do bathings and stuff like that,” Evans said.
The second year he studied at Syracuse University Medical School in obstetrics. His studies included pediatrics, neurology, urology, and other areas of medicine. For his senior year, he was back at Willard, handling patients with tuberculosis and syphilis. He was hired by Willard after graduation and spent most of his career there.
“I liked my job,” Evans said. “I stayed at Willard a good percentage of my time. I was very fortunate. People don’t realize that there were 3,500 people in there. It was like a civilization of its own. It was self-contained.”
Family
Evans married and raised two children, Joy and Gary. After the children were born, and following a divorce, he did a short stint at West Seneca State Hospital in the 1970s.
He got lured back to Willard in the late ’70s. In order to secure Evans, Willard had to make good on a request: Evans wanted an apartment at North Home, the women’s dormitory, and the hospital delivered.
Evans would meet his second wife, Duree Brown Henry, in 1981 through a close friend who was Duree’s brother. They married in 1983 and moved to a house in Geneva and have remained residents in the area ever since.
In 1984, Evans retired.
Lloyd and Duree have been married for 43 years. For almost two decades the couple headed to a second home in Florida, on Pine Island. Now, they reside in a cozy townhouse in a residential section of Geneva.
“I’ve been retired for 40 years and been pretty happy,” Evans said with good cheer. “Life has been very good to me.”