Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans

Personal life

She married attorney Joseph Brown Whitehead in 1895, and they moved to Chattanooga. The couple had two sons, Joseph Brown Whitehead Jr. and Conkey Pate Whitehead. In 1899, Joseph Whitehead and an associate proposed bottling Coca-Cola beverages, securing an exclusive contract. The family relocated to Atlanta in 1903 to expand the bottling business.

Joseph Whitehead died unexpectedly from pneumonia in 1906 while visiting Evans's parents. At age 34, with two young sons, Evans took over the family's business affairs and real estate assets. She assumed leadership of the Whitehead Holding Company and Whitehead Realty Company, actively managing the bottling operation, which then comprised 80 plants, eventually with her sons' help. She remarried in 1913 to Colonel Arthur Kelly Evans, a retired Canadian Army officer, and they lived in Hot Springs, Virginia.

In 1919, the Woodruff family purchased Coca-Cola, and president Robert Woodruff worked closely with Evans, who had been president of the bottling company since age 36. She sold the bottling operation, which had grown to over 1,000 plants, back to Coca-Cola in 1934 in exchange for stock. She was appointed to the Coca-Cola Company's board of directors, one of the first women on any major American corporation's board, serving for over two decades. She donated millions to more than 130 organizations, particularly in Virginia and Georgia.

In 1945, she established the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation, which received her entire estate upon her death eight years later. Charitable organizations have received over a billion dollars under her auspices; by 2025, the foundation held $4.2 billion in net assets.