For the Love of the Beautiful

In 1929, Nelson's family had a biographical sketch and photo included in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography.  I will not quote the entire entry, but a few of the passages are worth highlighting.

Foreseeing that motion pictures would become a permanency and a world success, in 1909 he founded the Independent Feature Film Co. in Cleveland, O., and devoted himself to its management until 1914.

Obviously a bit of hyperbole, but he should be given some credit for taking the risk of starting his working life in a relatively new business.  There are a couple of errors in the passage, however.  The Evans family was still living in Columbus in 1909.  The best evidence I have at the moment suggests that he started his film exchange business sometime between 1910 and 1912, and in Los Angeles, not Cleveland.  As seen in the previous post, the name of his first business was The American Feature Film Co.  It wasn't until early 1914 that he changed the name to the Independent Feature Film Co, after joining forces with a couple of former theatre owners.  At that point, he did move to Cleveland and the ended his film exchange business in late 1914.  But whoever wrote the biography can be forgiven, as they were probably relying on memory.

His artistic ability and his love of the beautiful prompted him to found the Evans Studio at Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif., and through his original art studies of the celebrated stars of the moving picture world gained for himself widespread recognition.  This studio, one of the largest and best equipped in the world, represented the greatest diversity of lights and shadows, and his inventive genius in constructing artistic settings and light effects gave his work peculiar originality and value.

I'm tempted to call this more hyperbole, but this is more of a case of taking pride in your son's accomplishments.  Further proof of that pride can be found in the next sentence.

Following his death the Nelson Evans studios were operated in the founder's memory, the profits being devoted to the establishment of a fund for charitable purposes, to be expended each year at Christmas time in a manner to be designated by the executors of his estate.

One thing has been clear throughout my research: Charles and Mary Evans were very devoted to their son.  Whether this was due to Nelson being in poor health or just doting on their only surviving son, they were always close by.

And here's the photo that accompanies the biography.