Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-01-06
ADMIRABLE
DEATHS SHOCK
TOWASH|NGT0N
.ga#ayt 4. ~
Rear Admiral Succumbs to
{. Attack of Acute Indiges-
ton After Illness of Less
Than Two Hours.

Washington D. c., Jan. 4.-Most Of
official Washington did not learn OF
the sudden demise last evening Of
Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans until
today. 1t caused great shock and
many were the expressions of sorrow
and sympathy for the aged wife and
family Of the brave old sailor BY
telegraph and by mail came cOndOl-
ences. - ... No
It had happened that Lieutenant
Commander Frank T. Evans, the only
son of the deceased officer, who was
supposed to have sailed yesterday for
the West Indies on the torpedo boat
destroyer Monaghan, had been de-
tanned in Boston and consequently, re-
ceived the telegram dispatched to him
last night informing him of his fathers
death. He reached Washington to-
day. Captain Marsh, who married one
of Admiral Evans daughters, was
reached by wireless on the battleship
Michigan, but was unable to interrupt
the cruise to the West Indies and re-
turn to Washington s... :
Funeral arrangements were we'll adj
!, RANGED = this, morning. There will be
services ate 80 o'clock tomorrow
afternoon at All Souls Unitarian
church, which President Taft attends.
The pallbearers have not yet been
selected but will be chosen from among
the naval officers who had served
under Admiral Evans.
The funeral cortege will be COM
posed Of four companies of marines,
two or three companies of blue Jackets
from the Washington navy yards, one
battery or artillery from the Wash
ington navy yard, and the entire bat
TALON of midshipmen from the naval
academy at Annapolis.
The interment will take place at
the Arlington National cemetery in a
plot, which the deceased admiral him.
self selected several years ago
Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans
Fighting Bob" to an admiring ma
tion-died suddenly at 4:45 o'clock
Yesterday afternoon at his home in
this city. Acute indigestion ended the
career. of one of the most popular
officers in the navy. He was i'll less
than two hours. 49,. ,.. s-., . ....
Admiral Evans, born sixty-ive years
ago in Floyd county, Virginia, was for
years sufferer from old wounds
sustained in the civil war and from
recurrent attacks of rheumatic govt.
One of the iron links that bound the
old navy to the new, commanding
figure in each. was Robley D. Evans.
He did not take kindly to the sObriquet
of Fighting Bob for although of
gruff exterior, he was a man of kind
Hest impulses. Thus it never was used
in his presence by his friends. But
his dauntless courage In times OF great
emergency: the grim determination
with which he faced overwhelming
odds and the stoicism with which he
bore. his wounds and gazed unflinch-
lngly in the face Of death made the
title so appropriate that as Fighting
Bob he was known wherever the
English language is spoken.
Gained Credit in Civil War.
Evans was mere boy when he was
sent to the naval academy at
Annapolis. Before he had got far with
his studies the civil war broke out
and, throwing his books to the winds,
he went to sea and was assigned to
blockade duty. 1t was in one of two
attacks made by the northern navy
upon the powerful defenses at Fort
Fisher, N. c., that young Evans re-
ceived the wound through the thigh
that made him cripple for life He
suffered three other wounds, but as
soon as he was discharged from the
hospital he again plunged into the
lighting and served until the end of
he civil war with great credit.
It was Evans who took the little dis
patch boat Dolphin on a cruise around