While searching for articles about the Dowlin Block, I ran across this account of an accident at its construction site. I immediately wanted to know if young Evelyn sufficiently recovered from the mishap, and how her life turned out.

According her official birth record, Helene Eveline (later called Evelyn) Langlois was born in North Adams on October 10, 1892, the last of four children born to Alfred and Philomine (called Phoebe) Langlois (maiden name Regnier), a native of Quebec. They married in 1885, but divorced a short time after Evelyn was born. Phoebe remarried in 1898, to Joseph Elliott. They later had one child of their own.

About 1910, the family moved to Holyoke, where Evelyn got a job as a spinner in the silk mills. Her stepfather worked in a brickyard. On December 2, 1911, Evelyn, then 19 years old, married Joseph Annino, then 21 years old. They settled in nearby Chicopee, and later bought a house in West Springfield. He worked in a tire shop, and then owned a confectionery store. They had a total of seven children.

Joseph Annino died in West Springfield, in 1960. Evelyn died 28 years later, on June 22, 1988, at the age of 95. She was buried at St. Thomas Cemetery in West Springfield. I talked to one of her grandsons, who had not seen the article about his grandmother’s childhood accident. His mother told him that she did not remember it ever being mentioned.