Meet Charles “LaLa” Evans, who spent 59 years and 11 months married to his beloved wife, Louise. After Louise passed away suddenly in 2011, LaLa turned his part of his house into a museum dedicated to Louise and their relationship, filled with photos and memories from their lifetime of love.
On the eve of Valentine’s Day, we’re revisiting one of the sweetest stories Great Big Story has ever told.
Throughout their marriage, LaLa and Louise took thousands of photographs together. These ranged from big dates and occasions, to little moments that they wanted to remember. These photographs now cover the walls of ‘Lala and Louise’s Place’, a real-life La La Land in Starkville, Mississippi.
LaLa and Louise first met as teenagers. They attended the same school and church and their budding relationship grew slowly. The first time he walked her home he remembered her mother asked who he was. The father finally said: “That George Evans’s son? Well, boy is from some pretty good stock, he all right.”
At their senior prom in 1951, after two years of courtship, they had their first date. In August of that year, they married. The young LaLa was working as a shoeshiner at the time, and worked on the morning of his wedding. He did not have a ring, blissfully unaware that this was custom, but sealed the union with a kiss – an area “I know a little bit of something about” he joked.
LaLa spent two years in the army, leaving in 1955. In 1956, they secured a loan and built a home – the same house Charles lives into this day. They had two sons, 18 years apart. Mississippi in the 1950s was a very challenging place in time for African Americans, with segregation and Jim Crow laws still very much enforced. Charles became Starkville’s first African American mailman, a job he would do for 30 years, and Louise began working in Starkville’s cafes once they became racially integrated. So much of the couple’s work, however, was dedicated to their community, and specifically Needmore – “one of Starkville’s earliest African American neighborhoods.”
LaLa worked to ensure Needmore would not be forgotten, successfully lobbying the local government to change the name of the community center to Needmore Community Center. He also secured a road sign recognizing Needmore, and a marker in George Evans Park – a local park named after LaLa’s father.
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“We were always community people, you see, and that was our way of giving back,” LaLa Evans said.
They documented these years with photos. “[Louise] never passed up an opportunity to take a picture, you know, and I don’t think I ever took a bad picture of her.”
These photos were at the core of the LaLa Land constructed in their backyard from October 2011 until February 2012. His efforts not only drew the curious eye of Great Big Story, but others, including Ellen Degeneres, whose show he appeared on in early 2016.
Sadly, in recent years and since Great Big Story visited, the museum is struggling to keep up appearances. Lala is now over the age of 90, and it has been the victim of a number of storms rolling through Starkville in recent years. The Commercial Dispatch, a local, family-owned newspaper, went and visited Lala in July 2023 and spoke to him about the recent struggles.
“This is the worst shape it has ever been in,” he said. The interview came after LaLa had had a recent fall, and a series of storms rolled through the Starkville area. “The storms just beat it to death. You’ll find some beautiful pictures of it online and how it used to look. But it’s just hard to keep up with.”
“It brings back such memories,” he continued. “I can come out here and reminisce and play the music in the background and look over my past. We had such a beautiful life. I have so much to remember… I have no regrets.”
Anyone interested in helping Lala and Louise’s Place can contact Charles LaLa Evans at [email protected].
