Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Evans: I don’t think we ever put it in those terms. But we always considered it a
privilege, and we always wanted them to be respectful of others who didn’t have those
opportunities. I hope we taught the children that. I think we did.
Hughes: What kind of boys were they?
Evans: They were very normal – full of mischief. And they’re all different, of course. The
boys couldn’t walk by each other without punching, you know. As they got into their preteens
and teens, they couldn’t go through a door without jumping up and trying to touch
the top of the door – for years!
Hughes: Some place in the Governor’s Mansion are there any pencil marks on a door jamb
that indicate the kids’ heights?
Evans: I hope they’ve all been painted over by
now. There were a lot of nicks and bruises that
the house got from our boys’ activities. But then,
we were just people. During the first six months
we were there it was very busy because it was a
legislative session. And in those days it was 60
days in the odd year. But we had tons of tours and
teas. The first ladies for years had always had—
every Wednesday – “at home” they would call
them. That’s a very old fashioned custom: “Mrs.
Daniel J. Evans will be at home from 2 to 4 P.M.”
Hughes: And if you couldn’t stay or the lady of
the house wasn’t there, you’d leave a calling card.
The First Lady in 1965. Evans family album
Evans: Yes. But that (leaving a card) was sort of gone by the time we were there. Through
the course of the first month – the first few weeks really – I realized that a lot of the people
in the community of Olympia had never been in the Mansion. The mayor’s wife, for one,
and others I would meet. So I sent the invitations to the spouses, because this was a
women’s thing, of all of the officials of Thurston County and the city offices and the county
offices and the service clubs and all that sort of thing, and opened it up. We ran out of
cookies at the first event.
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