Mrs. Evelina Francis Young

Evelina Francis Young was born on October 5, 1949, to Mitchell P. Smith, Sr. and Mildred Lee Coleman in Beaumont Texas. She graduated from Beaumont’s Charlton Pollard high school in 1968 and married John E. Young in 1974. The Young couple moved to Houston and to this union two children were born, Tanieka and Leron. Evelina and John also raised two other children as their own: Lovett Simone Robinson and DeQuincy Smith.

Evelina loved the Lord. She was baptized at Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Beaumont TX and when she relocated to Houston with John, she became a faithful and active member of St. Agnes Missionary Baptist Church. For the remaining years of her life, she was a member of Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church under the leadership of Bishop Winfred Garrett where she served in the Christians in Action Ministry.

Among her many gifts, Evelina had a heart for serving people. She shared this gift with her family, friends, church, and she used it to provide care to patients in a variety of hospitals in the Texas Medical Center. She worked as a surgical tech at Hermann Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital and toward the end of her career as an Occupational and Physical Therapy Aide at St. Joseph’s Hospital. She never met a stranger and could not resist offering assistance to anyone she encountered who was in need. Her generosity knew no bounds and was lavished upon those she knew, and often on people she didn’t. She could always be counted on to offer whatever she had—encouragement, kind words, food, or change.

Her children and grandchild were her greatest source of pride, and she took great delight in spending time with them, her siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews.

Evelina was preceded in death by her husband, John Young, mother and father, Mitchell P. Smith, Sr. and Mildred Lee Coleman. Siblings Jessie Lee Frazier, Alice Faye Smith, Bobby Jean Smith, Mitchell P. Smith Jr. and Carl Wesley Smith. Stepmother Lee Esther Smith; Maternal Grandparents: Elijah and Mary Grey, Paternal Grandparents: Horace and Rosetta Smith.