Dale Evans - Early Life

Early Life

Born Lucille Wood Smith in Uvalde, Texas, she had a tumultuous early life. While still in infancy her name was changed to Frances Octavia Smith. At age 14, she eloped with her first husband, Thomas F. Fox. She bore one son, Thomas F. Fox, Jr., when she was 15. Divorced in 1929 at age 17, she married August Wayne Johns that same year, a union that ended in divorce in 1935.

She took the name Dale Evans in the early 1930s to promote her singing career. In 1937, she married her third husband, accompanist and arranger Robert Dale Butts; they divorced nine years later. In 1947 she married Roy Rogers. The marriage was his third and her fourth. Dale had a son from her first marriage, Tom Jr., while Roy had an adopted child, Cheryl, and two biological children, Linda and Roy (Dusty) Jr., from his second marriage. Evans and Rogers together had one child, Robin, who died before her second birthday, and adopted four others: Mimi, Dodie, Sandy, and Debbie. They were married for 51 years.