Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

They’re waiting for the last of Terry Gross or whatever. I heard an interview with Ken Burns
the other morning. He was telling how that in the beginning people were so dubious that
he could make a documentary about the Civil War because there was no video back then!
Evans: He did it with still pictures. They moved the camera to focus on parts of a photo to
tell a story.
Hughes: Exactly. And someone said to him later, “Where did you get those movies of the
Civil War?!” And he laughed, “There are no movies of the Civil War.” And the diaries he
used to create dialogue are just incredible, too.
Evans: And the different narrations were wonderful. Different voices assume different
roles. It’s very clever the way they do it. Burns said that some of the photography – the
sunrise, sunset, clouds, rain, the moon – for the National Parks documentary “took us
10 years.” He was talking about going up to Kilauea in Hawaii. They hiked up at 2 in the
morning to get set up and to wait for sunrise.
Hughes: Does Dan do still photography as well as movies?
Evans: No. Not any more. I think I mentioned that I married, among other things, a 16mm
camera. Which was great in Europe except it was so heavy to carry around. I remember
that we were in Paris in 1960. And we had the camera. It had a wonderful leather case
and then all the film. The camera was on the backseat of the car and the case was there.
We parked on the street in Paris and we were getting out, and I said, “I don’t think we
should leave the camera there.” And Dan said, “Oh, it’s OK.” This is the way he always is,
even today. “You don’t have to lock the door. It’s OK.” And I said, “I’m sorry.” So I took a
newspaper and I covered it up. When we came back, the camera case was gone, but the
camera was not because I had covered it up with newspaper.
Hughes: Smart woman.
Evans: So thankfully we didn’t lose our camera and the film. But at Christmastime when
we had all these cousins, nieces and nephews staying with us at the Mansion, and other
family members, too, everybody would come down into the drawing room. And the kids
would be all excited. There would be our three plus at least 10 others – a big line of them,
every year, starting when they were very young. And they can’t come in the door until
189