 After a summer job at the "Cincinnati Times-Star" at age 19, she left Western College for Women with a passion for journalism that would last most of her life.She married Joe Evans when she was 20 and the couple moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended the University of Tennessee, receiving bachelor's and master's degrees in American history in 1932 and 1933 respectively.She took a job as a reporter with the "Knoxville News Sentinel" from 1933 to 1937.