Ida M. Evans


Ida M. Evans was an American short story writer most successful in the 1910s and 1920s. Several of her stories were adapted for the screen in the 1910s.

Early life

Ida May Evans was born in Red Oak, Iowa. In the 1890s she attended and taught at her grandfather's school short-lived school, Hamilton White College in Lebanon, Missouri.

Career

Evans worked in "wholesale millinery houses" in Chicago and Omaha when she began writing. Her first stories began appearing in print in 1911. "I was mighty careful to keep working at the wholesale houses for my bread and butter, until my stories began to sell fast enough to provide plenty of butter" she explained in 1918. She wrote short stories for national publications including American Magazine, Everybody's, McClure's, Good Housekeeping, Red Book, Hearst's International, ''Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Green Book Magazine. Her story "On the Banks of Wabash Avenue" was illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg.
Several of Evans's stories were adapted for the screen as silent films: A Question of Hats and Gowns, Virginia, It Makes a Difference, Limousine Life, The Way of a Man with a Maid, and The Path She Chose''. Other stories were bought for screen adaptation, and "Marry in Haste", was adapted in 1935 by Lockie Ingle.
Some sources conflate Ida M. Evans and Ida M. Adams, an actress and singer flourishing in the same period. There is no mention of a stage or music career in biographical notes about or by this author.

Selected stories by Ida M. Evans

  • "A Pink Feather"
  • "The Girl Who Came Back"
  • "Out of the Frying Pan"
  • "The Home that Eva Furnished"
  • "Being Kind to Anne"
  • "Marthy"
  • "Brew of Ashes"
  • "On the Banks of Wabash Avenue"
  • "The Old Order Changeth"
  • "The Lonesome Club"
  • "Omelets for Violets"
  • "Ethel Lavvander's Husband"
  • "Violet Eyes"
  • "The Heavy Mantle of Helen"
  • "Golden Apples"
  • "The Eternal Biangle"
  • "Yellows"
  • "Her Place in the Sun"
  • "Monday for the World"
  • "The Jazz Jessalyns"
  • "Natalie Comes Through"
  • "On the Hip"
  • "The Fifth Estate"
  • "And They Called Him a Fool"
  • "The Bitter Samaritan"
  • "Pavilion Queen"
  • "The Night Club Hostess"
  • "Dollar Babies"
  • "Pearls for Marguery Nolan"
  • "Chinnon Descendant and the Law"
  • "Dolls and Drums"
  • "Bird of Passage"
  • "The Christmas Star is White"
  • "House of Gloom"
  • "House Party"

Personal life

Evans lived in Chicago and Los Angeles.