The Train Robber's Daughter

In the late nineteenth century, economic conditions were such that the public relished Robin Hood stories. Tales of men who struck back at the corrupt railroad monopolies sold a lot of newspapers.

This was true in California as well as anywhere else, and when Chris Evans and John Sontag thundered into the headlines, the California press barons seized on the chance to earn their own illicit fortunes.

(Art via Don E. Humphrey's Evans & Sontag link index.)

They were the Frank and Jesse James of California. They robbed train after train and were indiscriminate killers. Between them they murdered a deputy, two members of a posse, a policeman, two train passengers and a tramp. The newsmen placed them at the top of a glorious criminal heirarchy.  Hearst's San Francisco Examiner called them "picturesque rascals." Ain't that cute? Each of them was a serial murderer, but when typeset, each was a "good and honest citizen."

But what was the effect of this grotesquely sentimentalized coverage? Not that it's worth pondering the effect on the outlaws - one was finally gunned down and the other went to prison for decades - but on the public, and more importantly, on their survivors?

A new book written by a California historian takes on this question. It examines the life of Eva Evans, the oldest daughter of the notorious outlaw. And what a life she led. After her father went to prison for a long and richly deserved stretch, she took to the stage. Eva starred in a sentimental and highly successful theater production about her father's life. She herself would admit "it was the rankest melodrama." It portrayed her father as the victim of a "posse of blood-money men."

That newspaper coverage continued to define her life even after she left the stage, as author Jay O'Connell has so carefully documented in a rich piece of history. It is The Train Robber's Daughter: The Melodramatic Life of Eva Evans, 1876-1970 [Amazon, B&N].

I throughly enjoyed this new twist on the train robber tale. It is a fascinating biography of a life defined by public opinion. I also relished this book for the language it contained. English was just not the same language a century ago that it is today, and even a "country-born" outlaw was more articulate than educated people of now. Some of my favorite lines:

• One ruffian threatened to blow up a bank to "everlasting nothingness." What a pair of words! It makes you want to stand up and give it a go yourself.
• When John Sontag was finally shot for the dirty dog he was, he said he was "euchered at last." Perhaps you have to play euchre to really appreciate this remark. When you're euchered, or caught cheating, you give your opponent four points in a contest for ten.
• The man who wrote the play starring Eva Evans had to face the Methodists who objected to it. He said: "With them, intellectual expansion is impossible, for their brains are confined to the covers of a single book. They are preaching against Evans and Sontag. Well, let them preach. I can preach as well as they and to larger congregations."

As someone who has studied the life of Jesse James, Jr. for my own little pet project, I was struck by the parallels. Both Eva Evans and Jesse Jr. were caught up in the intense romantic sentiment of their day. Both were compelled to write silly biographies lauding their outlaw daddies. Both made most curious statements on their fathers' careers. As Eva Evans' biographer explains, "Like her father, she believed not necessarily in his innocence; but in asserting, with all her heart, his innocence."

The Train Robber's Daughter is a wild saga that says as much of the times that produced Eva Evans as it does of her, and I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in train robbers, the yellow press, or simply interesting patterns of human lives.