Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

system that would equal us out a little bit more. It worked pretty well, actually, and we all
had our handicaps. However, just in the last two years it’s become very difficult for some
of us to play bridge. So we have now, very painfully, sort of quit our bridge club. We don’t
play bridge anymore. It was just too hard. But we still have many of our old friends, dear
friends. When the new museum opened, Bill and Mimi hosted the bridge club, and we all
went there for a private tour. Then we had dinner in the restaurant afterwards.
Hughes: You’re talking about the Seattle Art Museum?
Evans: Yes. And we’ve been to the Air & Space Museum because one of our members, Bill
Helsell, is on the board there. And Barbara Frederick and I put together an outing to see To
Kill a Mockingbird at the Rep. You know, we’re always looking for things of that nature that
we can do together. … So that’s the story of our bridge club. We were in existence for a
very long time, and with many of the same people throughout that time.
Hughes: Like “Trey,” when your three boys were growing up, did they talk politics too?
Were they interested in that, in terms of breakfast and dinner table talk?
Evans: Well, you’ve got to remember that when we left being governor our oldest was
only 16.
So, yes, we did talk about politics. But you just can’t do it all the time. I’ll tell you
what we talked about the most, and that was sports. Especially by the time we got to
Evergreen, I had quite a household of sports fans. Well, mother was still with us, but there
were the four boys –Dan and the three sons. Sports was just the talk every night because
they all are big sports nuts.
Hughes: What’s their favorite sport?
Evans: Our oldest’s would be football because he played football in high school. They all
like football. But, you name it, they like it. And I thought to myself one night, “I’m tired
of listening to sports. I want to talk about something else.” I saw in some magazine some
word game. So I remember that I served dinner, then I sat down at the table and said, “OK,
tonight we will not discuss any sports. And here is a word game.” And I passed around
pencils and something on paper. “This is what we’re talking about tonight,” I said. So we
sort of started out and there was a lot of lethargy there – not a lot of excitement. They
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