Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

England family. There were a lot of Bartletts. … All of our antecedents are British.
Hughes: I’m mostly of Welsh origin and there’s a lot of Bells in Wales.
Evans: I know. Dan’s family has a lot of Welsh. Evans is a very Welsh name. But we think
primarily England, actually. We have a letter that’s framed, hanging downstairs, that was
written by the brother of a Bell who came to America in 1812 or 1814. “Dear brother,”
the Englishman says, addressing the letter to William Bell in Ceres, New York. There’s
no street address, nothing else except “America.” He asked if there was work there in
America for a person like him. His brother was my great, great-grandfather, who had been
gone for a number of years. His brother goes on to say, “Since you left, our mother has
died, our sister has …” It goes through all these family issues. “Things are very hard here,”
he adds. He was from Haltwhistle, Northumberland, England, which is right up near the
Scottish border. So when we went as a family to visit England in 1977, we of course went
to Haltwhistle. It was early April, but it was still cold; the wind was blowing; the trees were
not budding leaves at all. It was bleak! But we stayed in a B&B and found this wonderful
woman who just loved to know that we had family from there. She called the woman
who worked at City Hall, who came right up and was eager to talk to us. Mother was with
us at the time. We were sharing all the information we could and then we went out into
the graveyard. It was “Bell,” “Bell” – Bells were everywhere – John Bell, William Bell … all
sorts of Bells. There was nothing welcoming about the town because life was harsh there,
and you could see it and feel it. Just a lot of sheep herders and what have you. But there
is something wonderful about being in a place where your family came from, where they
had lived, worked and died for generations. At one point in time, probably in the 1950s,
Daddy had read an article about this man from Haltwhistle whose name was Bell. He
had started as a sheep herder and had become the headmaster of the local school. So
Daddy wrote him a letter to the effect that, “Certainly we must be long-lost cousins … and
congratulations on what you’ve done. And, by the way, since we are long-lost cousins
surely you’d like to share with me some of your best products, namely Bell’s Scotch.” Daddy
was being funny again. And back came a letter in this beautiful Spenserian script. “My dear
cousin: It’s a pleasure to hear from you,” and on and on and on. And the Scotch became
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