Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Hughes: Tell us about any other trips that you got to take during those 12 years as first lady
that were really memorable?
Evans: Any trip I have is memorable. (smiling)
Hughes: Did you ever get to take the kids?
At the Osaka Expo with Ambassador Toru Haguiwara in 1970.
Washington State Archives
Evans: No. Not all three. When
they were older we took each child
on a trip. Most of them were to
Japan. Most of the governor’s
trips were to Taiwan, Hong Kong,
the Philippines, and there was a
memorable trip to China in 1974.
Well, the first trip to the Soviet
Union was an official trip. Alaska
Airlines was inaugurating a non-stop
from Anchorage to Leningrad, and they invited the governor of Alaska, the governor of
Washington and other dignitaries. One other time, we flew on Aeroflot in the Soviet Union.
Hughes: That must have been a little bit white knuckley.
Evans: Oh, it was. But it was fascinating. I remember that we were flying somewhere in
central Russia, and all of a sudden we were getting lower. And Dan said, “Geez, what’s
happening?” Pretty soon we were landing in a field. And the captain comes on and what
he said was translated to us that we had to land: “Ladies and gentlemen, there is fog at the
airport and we are landing at an alternate field,” which was just grass. We’re sitting in these
tiny little seats. I remember it was very warm. To travel in those days, I was wearing nylon
and polyester, and I think I had a sleeveless knit top that was polyester. I still remember
thinking, “If I don’t move I won’t be as hot.” And all of a sudden down the aisle came this
couple, carrying their bags. A trap door opened in the floor of the fuselage, and the ladder
goes down, and down they go, and they’re running off. They’re near home, so they just got
off right there in the field.
Hughes: Unreal.
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