Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Evans: Somewhere in my files I have a list of all the prices. Some of those pieces were
eight, ten, twelve thousand dollars – pieces that now would be thirty, forty, fifty-thousand
dollars. But that was a lot of money in the 1970s.
Hughes: Absolutely. And it was a masterstroke to get the first lady out of the loop for
saying yes or no to what you would accept in the way of donations.
Evans: When I traveled around for other purposes, very often people would come up and
say, “Well, I have this wonderful cranberry glass that’s so pretty.” And I’m sure it was, but it
was not appropriate for the Mansion.
Hughes: So, you’ve finally got this place all fixed up. It’s now pretty wonderful. When you
moved in a decade earlier it was “wretchedly decrepit,” as Dan put it. And now you make
the decision not to seek a fourth term. Was that something Dan and Nancy really mulled
over together and concluded, “It’s time to go do something else”? He probably could have
had a fourth term.
Evans: He had asked my counsel on that. We had discussed it somewhat. I was always
reluctant in these situations, because they came up several times in our life, about trying
to affect his decision. I always felt that it should be his decision. Consideration of our
family had to be part of it, but whether he would or would not was really his decision to
make and not mine. He was tormented about that. He really wanted to go on. In my heart
I knew it was not the right thing to do. I just knew it. I think that you get tired and you
don’t realize you’re tired. But he wasn’t tired. He was always energized. He loved being
governor and he loved this state and the people. He was very sincere and earnest about all
of that. But I just knew that with four more years, he would not be quite as aggressive. He
would work hard as always — but maybe not as innovative, perhaps. But I didn’t tell him
that, obviously. And I still remember when he told me his decision. I think it was during the
Legislature. I had one of my teas going on or an open house. I was standing by the front
door and he came in the front door, which was a surprise, at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. And
he walked right by me and whispered, “Come upstairs with me.” Just like that. I thought,
“Wooooooo!”
Hughes: This is a little bit out of the norm?
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