Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Hughes: You bought a house, tore it down and went looking for another rental?!
Evans: Well, we were still living on Bainbridge. But finally we rented a house. Then we
hired an architect and we started building a house.
Hughes: When did you move in here?
Evans: November of ’92.
Hughes: It’s an absolutely great house, Nancy.
Evans: Thank you. And this time it was fun to do. When Dan and I were working on the
Mansion (renovation) we would have arguments. Two strong people butting heads about
silly little things sometimes, but they just seemed important to us – where a door should
go. Things like that.
Hughes: And you’re married to an engineer.
Evans: Oh yes, there’s a lot of that involved. But with this one we didn’t have any
problems at all, and we knew what we really wanted. We wanted to live on one floor so
we could live here a long, long time and they could carry us out feet first – that sort of
thing. We made the doors wide so wheelchairs could go through. And the handles are not
knobs, they’re just levers.
Hughes: You really thought of all the details.
Evans: Yes, we did. And we had an architect we enjoyed working with – someone who
listened. So it’s been a great house for us. Downstairs is now mostly spare bedrooms and
some storage, which is too bad because I fill them up. We used to have one huge storage
room down there where Dan put up a net, attached it to the wall and then to a post and
then to a wall, making an enclosure. I had got him a machine so he could practice his golf
swing and actually hit the golf ball. Well, it was just great. He would go down there and
swing away. Until one day, the golf ball hit the post and bounced back and hit him in the
eye. Fortunately, he was wearing his glasses or who knows what would have happened. He
blackened his eye and broke his nose. It was not a good time! And the storage room soon
got smaller.
Just before we moved in, one son became engaged. Then a few months later
another son became engaged. And both of them were being married in 1993 – summer
180