Evelyn Barksdale

"You girls are just unbelievable, is what I think. The way you just whine and bicker, I can't get through to you at all."

Evelyn Barksdale is Helen, Rita, and Amy's mother in Kara Wild's Driven Wild Universe. Evelyn ("Evie" for short), is quite well off and has lived in Rutherford, Virginia for nearly 40 years. While crusty and aloof, she also displays a keen sense of wit, and is concerned about Helen and Amy as well as Rita. In Part One of "None in the Family," she pushes hard for all of her girls, including the reluctant Helen, to be there for her 50th wedding anniversary. She is compassionate toward Helen after her fight with Jake ("None in the Family, Part Two"), urging a reconciliation. With Amy, she expresses resentment for being shut out numerous times and for not being told that Amy had a significant other. Finally, in Part Two, she takes all three of her daughters to task for speaking ill of their father, reminding them that their faults are of their own making.

Many DWUs give hints about what Evelyn was like in the past. In DWU #13, "Erin the Head," Amy tells Daria that when she was a teenager, she resented the way her mother favored Rita's daughter, Erin. In DWUs #19 "All But Forgotten" and #20 "Memory Road," Amy goes further, describing Evelyn as having a million social activities designed to keep her out of the kitchen, and revealing that growing up, Helen felt more like her mother than Evelyn did. Yet in the flashback episode "The Age of Cynicism," Evelyn reveals herself to be a doting wife, concerned about her husband's health. In short, while her reputation for being an inattentive mother has a lot of merit, she is also far from being an out and out rhymes-with-witch.

Evelyn made her first appearance in None in the Family, Part One.