Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

oth in college. He came to the door to pick me up, and, looking down his glasses, my
father said, “What are your prospects, young man?” I was just, “Oh, God dad!” He would
do that to any man who came to the house to pick up any of his daughters. He would
always have something to say to them that just jarred his daughters.
Hughes: So that’s a classic example of Lawrence Bell’s sense of humor?
Evans: Oh yes. And he was very smart. He would play bridge. He had three or four books
going all the time. Loved mysteries; loved history; loved learning. And as I said earlier, he
took German at Stanford and then was asked to stay and teach it. He also took Spanish. So
when I took Spanish in high school he was my tutor. I’d go and I’d say, “Daddy, could you
help me with my Spanish classes?” And he still remembered it after all those years.
Hughes: Any other role models or teachers that really stand out from junior high or high
school? People who really made an impression on you and reinforced that notion – “I can
be whatever I want to be”?
Evans: No, I think that was primarily family. But I had a piano teacher who was wonderful.
His name was Hans Moldenhauer. He and his wife had come over from Germany. He was
a very good teacher and a very good pianist. He climbed the mountains, too. His wife
Rosalie also played the piano, and sometimes they would play dual pianos. He was also
wonderfully understanding of a young girl who stopped and strayed and didn’t practice
as she should. I had talent but I didn’t necessarily work at it that hard. But he pushed
me and pushed me and was really just wonderful. When we were in Spokane, Dan and I
would always go see him. He was so smart;
he picked up on things very quickly. He
had this huge collection of research he’d
done on composers so a lot of it is in the
Smithsonian now and also in European
museums, private collections, libraries.
After Rosalie died, he had remarried.
And in later years, Mary, his second wife,
Mom leads a sing-a-long in 1967. Washington State Archives
contacted me while he was still living. They
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