Undeliverable: Return to Sender
David Gerald Evans and Francis ‘Ken’ Evans sent and received hundreds of letters during their overseas service in the First World War. A collection of over 150 of these letters and other documents has recently been donated to the Memorial by the Evans family, shedding light on their war time experiences.
The Evans brothers grew up on the family property ‘Redcamp’, near Wangaratta in Victoria, with their parents and many siblings. Francis, known by all as Ken, was the older of the two having been born in 1884. He worked as a stock and station agent in Perth before enlisting in 1916 and served as a Private on the Western Front with the 51st Australian Infantry Battalion.
David Gerald, just Gerald to everyone who knew him, was born in 1889 and worked on the family farm as a grazier before he enlisted in early 1915. He served with the 22nd and 8th Australian Infantry Battalions in Egypt and on the Western Front, and achieved the rank of Captain. Gerald’s military career was illustrious – he was mentioned in despatches on three separate occasions and won a Military Cross in early 1917 for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.
During their service the Evans brothers wrote often to their extensive family and the collection holds detailed letters from both Gerald and Ken to their parents, siblings and friends. They ask questions about home and describe their lives in the Army. Gerald’s letters are especially prolific, and he excitedly writes of Officer training, sends his mother photographs from Egypt and highlights his disbelief at being awarded the Military Cross. Family replied often, recounting stories from home and keeping the brothers abreast of local goings on.
In 1917 tragedy struck the Evans family when, on 20th September, Gerald died of wounds sustained in a shell blast near Polygon Wood, Belgium. Letters written to Gerald were returned, marked unceremoniously ‘Undeliverable: Return to sender – Deceased’, their envelopes a small but poignant reminder of the impact of war.
Overcome by their loss, The Evans family drafted and sent a letter to Ken to explain the circumstances of his brother’s passing. His father John, in a heart wrenching message of grief, stated simply:
“I feel that none of us will ever again be as we were.”
Signing off the emotional letter, John expresses the family’s desperate wish for his safety:
“Your mother is standing by me and saying tell him I wish I could have my arms around him and love him and tell him to bear-up and come back to us. We will pray for you.”
This letter never reached its destination.
Just over three weeks after Gerald’s death, on October 13th1917, Ken Evans was killed in action near Zonnebeke Belgium during the Third Battle of Ypres. It was his 33rd birthday. And so, another devastating envelope in the collection reads ‘Undeliverable: Return to sender – Deceased’.
Further documents in the collection show just how far reaching the consequences of losing not one, but two sons actually were for the Evans family. Many letters of condolence speak highly of the two young men who were widely admired, not only by people in the region but by their fellow soldiers at the front.
There are also letters from the community priest who, faced with the prospect of so soon having to say a second mass in memoriam of an Evans son says:
“I realise that your family has sustained a most severe loss, a loss far greater than that inflicted on many other families by this dreadful war. Some have made great sacrifices in the present struggle for righteousness, but very few have been called upon to sacrifice two of their bravest and best in the interests of [liberty] and justice”
Perhaps the most difficult to comprehend from a modern perspective, are a group of letters from the Victorian Taxation Office asking the family to pay the probate, or “death tax”, due on the assets of their deceased sons. As holders of significant shares in family property and resources, probate payments for both Ken and Gerald would have been a substantial sum for the Evanses to find unexpectedly.
Now, in a time where these taxes no longer exist and seem outlandish, the years of correspondence between lawyers, the family and the government is confronting. An overdue information request notice from the Land Tax Branch calls for “prompt attention” and a letter from a solicitor states:
“We agree with you that it would be a fair and reasonable thing for the Victorian Government to forego probate duty on the estates of men who have lost their lives fighting for the empire but the government does not think it fit to do so”.
The sentiments enclosed in the letter provide little comfort for a family mourning such a significant loss during a time of national grief. The Evans sons sacrificed themselves for their King and country and yet their family was given no reprieve.
The moving and sad story of the Evans brothers is just one of many that can be pieced together using the documents they left behind. The Private Records collections represent thousands of people who were impacted by conflicts right up to present day, and I wonder just how many tiny envelopes we hold marked simply ‘Undeliverable: Return to Sender – Deceased’.