Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Hughes: I’m told that the chief hardly ever drank. And yet he’d prowl around town at
night during the Legislature, from the Tyee to downtown, just to see what was going on.
Evans: I think probably his one vice, if you could call it that, was horse racing. I don’t know
that he gambled that much. But he loved the horse races. And he had a wonderful wife.
Hughes: In 1965, when you and Dan moved
into the Mansion, you were quite a young
woman. And your whole era as first lady was a
transitional time in the way women felt about
themselves and asserted themselves, and some
of the trappings of what we used to call “society.”
The Aberdeen Daily World, the Tacoma News
Dan and Nancy try out the governor's chair for the first time.
Washington State Archives
Tribune, every paper, had a “society” section.
There would be a lot of detailed write-ups, even
in small dailies, about guilds and sororities and
all that sort of thing. One of the controversies I remember that really burbled in the early
1970s was courtesy titles. When the longtime society editor of The Aberdeen World retired
and a new woman came on – a much younger woman – she decided it would be a lot
more egalitarian if “Mrs. Daniel J. Evans” became “Nancy Evans.” Some women were just
enraged. They liked going by their husband’s names. We got a lot of flack over that.
Evans: I’m sure you did.
Hughes: Did you see some of that in the expectations for what you should be – and in your
own feelings about yourself?
Evans: Well, then as things changed even more I become just “Evans.” “Evans” did this,
and “Evans” did that.
Hughes: Is that jarring at all to you?
Evans: No, not really. I think at the time I was part of that transition. I was brought up
with the notion that you called older people “Mrs.” or whatever courtesy title.
Hughes: So until you got to really know her, would you have called Mrs. Joe Gandy “Mrs.
Gandy”?
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