Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

But I got the rental furniture delivered, and we lived that way until the rooms in the
house were fixed up. Then we moved into this great little house of ours.
Hughes: Eleanor Roosevelt often told the story that when Franklin became assistant
secretary of the Navy in 1917 that she had a social obligation as an official’s wife to “go
calling.” And if Mrs. Evans or Mrs. So-and-So wasn’t there she’d leave a calling card to be
certain that her visit was duly noted.
Evans: And that was how it was done. You know, Washington, D.C., is a very formal city. It’s
Southern, and it still is to this day. They don’t leave their cards any more, I don’t think, but
there is a great amount of civility there.
Hughes: Was there some residue of all that early protocol when you got there, Nancy?
Evans: Oh yes. There was no more of the calling and leaving the cards, but there were
certain formalities.
Hughes: So when you arrived in town in 1983 as Mrs. Senator Dan Evans, there were
certain expectations in terms of going to go see some people?
Evans: No, not that sort of thing. But the way parties were given and dinners and things.
There was still that. And sometimes the women would retire to the whatever room while
the men sat around the table and had the brandy and cigars and what have you. I had
some of that in Seattle, actually.
Hughes: And you were first lady and a senator’s wife in an era where smoking was still
socially acceptable.
Evans: Oh yes, a lot of people smoked. At the Mansion, we were very careful to put
ashtrays everywhere because we would find residue of put-out cigar butts in planters and
places they shouldn’t have been.
There’s still a lot of smoking going on around this world. … I’m a reformed smoker.
I haven’t smoked since I was married. I quit smoking when we were engaged, actually. But
when I go by a young person, which you do a lot in Seattle, they’re often standing on the
street having a cigarette. They’re on a cigarette break because they can’t smoke in their
buildings any more. And I just want to go up to that person and say, “For personal reasons,
I’m telling you, I’ve had siblings who smoke and you do not want to do it because it is a
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