Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

When they were very young, shortly after we moved in, on the backside of the Capitol
there were steps that lead up with marble sides that they would get on and slide down.
It just made me very nervous because there were sharp edges everywhere and no sides.
They just thought that was such fun. And I really worked hard at telling them they could
not do that.
Hughes: Is it true, as it has been written, that Nancy Evans once delivered her son’s
Olympian paper route one day?
Evans: Well, I don’t think it was just one day.
Hughes: Really? Which son was that?
Evans: This is Mark, our middle son. He was very enterprising. He was the one who
would save his money and be careful about how he spent it. I won’t go into comparing
children. But what was he, 11 or 12? Something like that. And so he decided he wanted
a paper route. So that was fine. But occasionally he was sick, and I’d fill in. Dan did it too,
at various times. We knew the route. It was down towards town, part commercial, part
residential. And Mark was young, you know, and he’d sort of forget sometimes. We’d
get the complaint that “We didn’t get our paper.” And we’d have to run down there and
deliver a paper. Dan was helpful because he got a clipboard and made a chart, a map, or a
list on how to proceed through it. Then he put see-through cellophane or something over it
to protect it from the rain. After that we didn’t get so many complaints.
Hughes: Now that’s what I call management expertise.
Evans: Yes. And Dan and I both filled in when necessary. But Mark did it, and got his
money, and saved it, and it was good.
Hughes: You know, I keep thinking: Nancy Bell grows up in Spokane during the
Depression, with a great mom and dad, and a loving family, and she has a lot of common
sense. Then she’s a music teacher. Then six years later you’re first lady. Did you learn all
this management moxie to run that Mansion through on-the-job training?
Evans: I think so, yes.
Hughes: Well, you did manage those Christmas pageants at school.
Evans: Yes I did!
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