Surname	Collier
Given Name	Amanda Evelena
Nickname	Ev, Evelena, Evalina, Evelina
Sex	Female
Born	16-FEB-1839 in Washington County, Alabama
Died	1874 in Texas
Father	Erasmus Giles COLLIER (18-DEC-1802 - 18-DEC-1858)
Mother	Olivia Sonai HARRISON: born: 1805 in Tennessee; died: 1860 in Texas

Marriages

Marriage 1

15-MAY-1855 in Grimes County, Texas to Thomas Augusta SANDERS (1835 - ~1859)

Children

• Thomas Augusta SANDERS (15-JAN-1857 - 21-NOV-1916)
• Lloyd Winfield SANDERS (24-MAY-1859 09-OCT-1941)

Marriage 2

01-MAY-1861 to John Warren DAVIDSON CSA; born: 02-MAR-1824 in South Carolina; died: 03-JUN-1879 in Texas; buried: Martha Chapel Cemetery, Huntsville, Walker County, Texas

Children

• John Howard DAVIDSON; born: 17-NOV-1864 in Grants Colony, Walker County, Texas; died: 26-DEC-1926 in Phelps, Walker County, Texas; married: Mary Gertrude COX (13-FEB-1866 - 10-MAY-1908); 10 children; buried: Black Jack Cemetery in Phelps, Walker County, Texas
• Infant DAVIDSON; sex: Female; born: After NOV-1864

Story

Thomas Augusta Sanders was born in Alabama in 1835. Amanda Evelena Collier was born in 1839, also in Alabama. Early in life this couple heeded the advise of the day: "Go West, Young Man." After traveling to Texas they got married in Montgomery County. Their first child, Thomas Augusta II, was born January 15, 1857. Less than two years later Amanda (Evelena as she was known), was expecting a second child when Thomas Augusta was killed in a bar-room brawl, leaving Evelena a widow at age 19 with a small boy and another child on the way.

She moved in with her mother to await the birth of her child. LLOYD WINFIELD SANDERS was born May 24, 1859. Evelena and her two boys, Thomas Augusta II and LLoyd Winfield, stayed on with her mother for several years. In 1861, at age 22, she married John Warren Davison. To this union was born two children, a son, John Howard, November 17, 1864, and later a daughter, who was killed by an Indian woman as an infant.

In 1873 Evelena divorced Davison, their son John Howard was 9 years old at the time. The two Sanders boys, Thomas Augusta II and Lloyd Winfield, were 13 and 11. Mr. Davison was extremely cruel and abusive to his wife and two stepsons. So cruel, in fact, the youngsters actually left home prior to the divorce. The eldest, Thomas A. II, was found to have lived with a Spiller family and attended school near Coldspring, Texas. LLOYD WINFIELD SANDERS, the younger boy, was not located through research and little or nothing is known about his childhood. However, the fact that his mother was a school teacher, it is assumed that Lloyd attended school early in life, or was taught at home by Evelena, who seemed to have vanished from earth after her divorce.

Notes

According to the 1840 U.S. Census, Erasmus Giles Collier was living in Alabama until about 1840. However, by 1846 Erasmus had immigrated to Texas and shows up in the Republic of Texas Poll List as a citizen of the Texas. So Amanda Evelena Collier was a small child (age 1 to 7) when her family moved from Alabama to Texas. By the time she got married in 1855, she had been in Texas for at least 9 years. One of Amanda's grand-daughters was named Ollie Evalina (Davidson) Morgan. So my assumption is that that grand-daughter's middle name was from Amanda "Evalina" (Collier) Sanders Davidson. The birth and death dates recorded above were from a family tree entry in Ancestry.com. Consider them a lead.