The Wit and Wisdom of William Bacon Evans

Immediately after the death of William Bacon Evans on February 25, l964, Edwin B. Bronner, curator of the Quaker Collection in the library of Haverford College, envisaged a project which has developed into this pamphlet. He wrote, “We would like to gather together remembrances of William Bacon Evans. We feel that there was much in his life which was unique and that it would be a service to Friends to have access to material about him.”

Encouraged by Bacon Evans’ nearest of kin, his nephews and nieces, he thereupon wrote letters soliciting the anecdotes and memorabilia which form the basis of the present publication. In offering these one is all too keenly aware that some of the charm and luster of the original were dependent on the smile, the twinkling eye, and the obvious enjoyment or satisfaction of the speaker. The explosive utterance in a meeting for worship and the “apple sweet voice” at the fireside supplied a certain amount of the pungency. But the flavor still remains, and we present it here as best we can, reproducing his exact wording as closely as possible, in the hope that these quotations will evoke a happy memory of the most distinctive figure amongst us for more than two generations.