Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey on May 2, 1907. He was the son of Isaac Evans and Sarah (Newmark) Evans and brother of Monroe Evans. Evans moved to North Carolina to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he met Sara Nachamson, a student at nearby Duke University and daughter of retailers Eli and Jenny Nachamson, who owned the United Dollar Stores Company. Evans and Nachamson married on June 19, 1928, in Durham, where they settled, taking over the day to day business of United Dollar Stores.
