Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Evans: Well, I was a spoiled brat. (laughing) I was doted on, and I loved it. I don’t deny it.
But it was a hard time because it was the Depression. And then my brother Bill got trench
mouth, I think from drinking from a public fountain. And in those days, before antibiotics
it ate away at his lower lip. So he required a number of surgeries over a period of time.
And it was all a new procedure in those days. They would take skin from various parts of
his body that were similar in texture to his lip – from behind the ear, the thighs, the inside
upper arm. They would do a little layer at a time.
Hughes: So did poor Bill, at the worst of this problem, did he have a disfigured lip?
Evans: As a young teen, and you know how sensitive teenagers are.
Hughes: Absolutely. Acne is bad enough. Just think about losing your lower lip.
Evans: And you have no sensation there (from the grafts). He always was a slobbery
kisser. (laughing) We used to tease him about it. But it didn’t deter him because he was
always a very popular teen. But at the time it was hard. Financially it was very hard for us
because there was no insurance at all. It was a hard time anyway in mining – a hard time
everywhere in America.
Hughes: So your dad was still working sporadically as a mining engineer?
Evans: Oh, that’s all he did.
Hughes: With a wife and four kids.
Evans: Yes. Many mouths to feed.
Hughes: Was he away from home a lot?
Evans: When I was very young he was. In fact,
he went back down to Mexico for a while. The
story is, and I have no idea if it’s true – maybe it’s
apocryphal – but they always said that he came to
the door one day when I was 5 or 6, and I opened
the door and said, “Mother, that man’s here again.”
And it was my father. (laughing) But when I was
older, Daddy was not gone a lot.
Hughes: So, tell me more about the siblings.
Nancy at five. Evans family album
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