Born in Seattle on October 16, 1925 [HL005P][GDrive]

Associations

• Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (born 1912) (Scoop Jackon was a long-serving Washington Senator, while Daniel Evas was the governor; when Scoop Jackson died in 1983, Daniel Jackson was assigned to fill his seat. )

• Mary Maxwell Gates (born 1929) (College friend, bridge partner; Gov Evans assigned Mary gates to ta UW Regents role in 1975)

• William Henry Gates II (born 1925) (College friend, who became a close life-long friend; also frequent Bridge partner)

• James d'Orma Braman (born 1901) ( Dorm Braman was mayor of Seattle, while Daniel Jackson was Governor of the state of Washington)

TODO - video is available ... on CSPAN - "Life and Career of Daniel Evans"

recorded DECEMBER 11, 1987

Senator Daniel Evans of Washington discussed his political history and decision to retire from the Senate. The three-term governor of Washington was elected to fill the Senate seat of Democrat Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who died in 1983.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?2066-1/life-career-daniel-evans

APRIL 18, 1986 - Probe into Capitol Hill slaying continues

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ByJULIE BRIENZA

Saved Wikipedia (Aug 4, 2020) - Daniel J. Evans

Live link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Evans

Aug 14 2020 capture - [HK002E][GDrive]

In 1968, Seattle was just one stop on the Norwegian monarch's tour of the United States. King Olav arrived from San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon May 1 and had dinner that evening at the Rainier Club with Governor Daniel J. Evans (b. 1925) and Mayor Dorm Braman (1901-1980).

https://wnpf.org/people/daniel-evans/

Daniel J. Evans

Dan Evans by Mitch Pittman

Honorary Board of Directors

Honorary Board Member | Founder and Former Washington State Governor and Senator

May this wilderness always be protected, and always be enjoyed, for generations who follow us.

Daniel J. Evans ranks as one of the most distinguished leaders in the history of the State of Washington. Perhaps best known as governor from 1965–1977, he has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to public service. Before entering politics, Evans was a civil engineer. After graduating from UW with degrees in civil engineering, he worked as a structural engineer for the City of Seattle, Associated General Contractors, and in private practice. In 1956, he entered politics as a member of the Washington State House of Representatives, where he served from 1956–1965.

He became governor of the State of Washington in 1965, ultimately serving an unprecedented three consecutive terms. He was recognized as “One of the Ten Outstanding Governors in the 20th Century” (University of Michigan study, 1981). After declining to run for office again, he assumed the presidency of Olympia’s Evergreen State College in 1977.

Evans is actively involved in a large number of community and nonprofit organizations. He chaired the National Academy of Science’s Commission on Policy Options for Global Warming and co-chaired a delegation to monitor elections in Nicaragua with former President Jimmy Carter. From 1989–1994, Evans also served as a political analyst for KIRO radio and TV. He taught as a part-time lecturer at the Evans School from March 1989–1990, and currently heads his own consulting firm, Daniel J. Evans Associates.

Born in Seattle in 1925, Evans learned an appreciation for wilderness early, summiting Silver Peak in the Cascades at age 12. In 1993, alongside legendary mountaineer Lou Whittaker and Melinda French Gates, he founded Washington’s National Park Fund, and he remains involved as an Honorary Board Member and friend of the Fund to this day.

HistoryLink profile for Evans, Daniel J. (b. 1925) and Nancy Bell Evans (b. 1933)

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By Cassandra Tate ; Posted 12/15/2004

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/

Nancy Evans: First-rate First Lady

She takes the winter and she makes it summer

And summer could take a few lessons from her;

Picture a tomboy in lace: That's Nancy with the laughin' face!

- Phil Silvers & Jimmy Van Heusen

Bright, pretty and lots of fun, Nancy Bell, a grade-school music teacher, had no shortage of suitors. In fact, two fellas proposed to her on the same Seattle park bench in the space of a week. One was a handsome engineer named Dan Evans. That was a half century ago, and although Nancy told Dan she wanted three days to think about it - "The worst three days of my life," he says - there's never been a day when she regretted saying "Yes."

Well, there was the muggy day in August of 1966 when she was eight months pregnant with their third son. Barefoot and wearing a maternity smock, she was scampering around the yard of the Governor's Mansion, trying to corral their enormous Irish wolfhound, Peggy, who was in heat. Her spouse and his State Patrol aide, Bill Lathrop, happened to be driving by. They waved gaily and kept right on going, not realizing their services were urgently desired. When the governor strolled into the mansion a half hour later, she was livid. "You saw me chasing that damn dog. Why didn't you stop?!" Dan stammered that he was oblivious. Nancy tried to keep scowling. Then they erupted in laughter. What a sight: The First Lady, great with child, in hot pursuit of the First Pooch. Good thing a news photographer hadn't happened by. They tell the story with relish because it is a classic slice of the sometimes goofy lives they led for the 12 years they were governor and first lady. They strived to be a normal couple - hiking, biking and skiing with their three live-wire sons, playing Pickleball and Bridge with friends between bouts with legislators and visits from presidents and premieres. Nancy also welcomed hundreds of townspeople who told her they had lived in Olympia all their lives and never been to the Governor's Mansion. During their first six months in the mansion they had 10,000 visitors. Asked how she mustered the courage to entertain all those people, Nancy says, "Ignorance is bliss!" (For the record, they did discover later on that five-year-old Dan Jr. had signed his name in the guest book a dozen times in big letters.)

Nancy and Dan: still best friends after 50 years. Evans family album Nancy and Dan: still best friends after 50 years. Evans family album.

They'd been married for only five years before pulling off one of 1964's biggest political upsets. In a Democratic tsunami, Lyndon B. Johnson trounced Barry Goldwater, the hero of the Republican Right. But in Washington State, a Eagle Scout bucked the tide to defeat two-term Democrat Al Rosellini. Nancy Bell Evans, 31, the daughter of a spunky suffragist and the pride of Spokane, became the youngest First Lady in state history. Her husband, Daniel J. Evans, was 39 - the youngest governor ever.

Dan Evans served an unprecedented three consecutive terms and Nancy became one of the state's best-loved first ladies. Along the way, she saved the Governor's Mansion from being replaced by some characterless rambler, championed its renovation and redecoration and created a Mansion Foundation with a corps of dedicated volunteers. She was "a vivacious hostess, a serious leader and one hell of a mother, all at the same time - plus a remarkable wife," her husband says, adding that it's all still true. After 50 years together, they're still best friends, and Nancy is also the person Dan most trusts to give him a reality check.

"She really is the ying to dad's yang," says their son Bruce. "The degree to which they go back and forth on stuff is remarkable - not because they fundamentally disagree but because they just like to debate things. More than a lot of married couples, they still communicate in a very open way, which is a testimony to their marriage and why it has lasted so long."

Not-so-secret weapon

A few months after Dan was elected governor, the Legislature went into overtime and Nancy had to go it alone on an important trade mission to Tokyo. She'd never been away from her children for three weeks, but she dutifully packed her bags. The trip was a crash course in international diplomacy. "Japan was a very male-oriented society," Dan notes, but Nancy was a hit with everyone she encountered and made lasting friends. "It was an enormous boost to her confidence."

The first lady was the governor's not-so-secret weapon, according to campaign workers and members of his staff. "Nancy is very smart, even-keeled and politically very savvy," says Jay Fredericksen, who was Evans' press secretary in the 1970s. "As a bonus, she has this great sense of humor." She met kings and queens, "but never let anything go to her head. In 1973, we were all back East for the Republican Governors' Conference, which Nelson and Happy Rockefeller were hosting. It was my first trip to New York City, and we were staying in an upscale hotel, so I was sort of awe-struck. I remember Nancy talking about having dinner at Rocky's town house. She said, ‘My God, there's a Picasso in the bathroom!' "

Dan and Nancy with their namesake immigrant son, Evans Nguyen. Evans family album Dan and Nancy with their namesake immigrant son, Evans Nguyen. Evans family album.

Back in Olympia, Nancy had bats in her attic, although by then her campaign to make the drafty old mansion a livable place of pride for the state and its occupants was finally making real headway. Today, the mansion is the cornerstone of her legacy as first lady. When Gov. Mike Lowry and his wife Mary welcomed visitors in the 1990s, he always quipped that they were "really enjoying public housing."

Nancy Evans also sparked new interest in history and the arts in Olympia and was a founding trustee of Planned Parenthood of Thurston County. Although abortion is "not something we would ever choose," she says she has "always felt it's a woman's right, prerogative, to make that decision." She supported the 1970 statewide referendum to make abortion "legal and safe" in the early months of pregnancy. She also backed the Equal Rights Amendment and has been a longtime activist for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled. She and Dan welcomed Vietnamese refugees to Washington in the 1970s after the governor of California said there was no room at the Golden State Inn. One young immigrant couple was so grateful for their support that they named a son Evans.

Nancy at a Whitman College trustees’ dinner, 2007. Whitman College. Nancy at a Whitman College trustees’ dinner, 2007. Whitman College.

Nancy's "retirement" years are devoted to an ambitious array of public service, philanthropic and cultural causes. She is vice chairman of the board of KCTS, the Seattle affiliate of the Public Broadcasting System, and active with the Northwest Parkinson's Foundation. Dan's brother and Nancy's two sisters-in-law, as well as their friend, former governor Booth Gardner, have suffered from the disease. A cancer survivor, as is her husband and their granddaughter, Eloise, she helped found the Friends of Cancer Lifeline in the late 1980s and was its first chairwoman. "She takes her responsibilities to her family, her friends and her community to the nth degree," says Barbara Frederick, Cancer Lifeline's retired executive director. "Her ‘community' has reached to every corner of our state. And every single thing she's involved with she does with all her energy. Her attention to detail is just remarkable."

At Whitman College, her alma mater, she has been an overseer, trustee, fundraiser and talent scout since the early 1970s. In 2009, Whitman presented her its Scribner Award for Distinguished Service.

Involved with the Seattle Symphony since the 1960s, Nancy played a major role in generating support for the world-class Benaroya Hall, and headed the search committee for a new conductor in 2009. Her husband marvels at her moxie, and willingness to take on jobs like that. Dan and a throng of others will tell you that if you pass muster with Nancy, you're bound to be all right. She is financially savvy and a good judge of character. She makes friends and forges alliances everywhere she goes. "She's just terrific at making connections and introducing people," says former Whitman president Tom Cronin.

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/page2.aspx

- 2-

A natural-born campaigner

Sporting a hat he was given at a Western-wear shop, Dan Evans campaigns for the U.S. Senate in 1983 with Nancy at his side. Matt McVay, Seattle Times Sporting a hat he was given at a Western-wear shop, Dan Evans campaigns for the U.S. Senate in 1983 with Nancy at his side. Matt McVay, The Seattle Times.

After deciding against a bid for a fourth term, Dan became president of The Evergreen State College during a critical period in its existence and went on to serve in the U.S. Senate. He is a bipartisan political icon in Washington State, and when he emphasizes that he couldn't have done it without his wife he's not just being gallant. Evans started his 1964 campaign for governor "with all the warmth and charisma of an iced halibut," according to historian Gordon Newell. He got a lot better, but Dan's handlers still sometimes called him "Old Gluefoot" because he dawdled and was bad at gripping and grinning. Nancy was a natural-born campaigner.

Dan often took his cues from Nancy - sometimes literally. He gave good speeches, but tended to talk too long. "They worked up this code, where Nancy would cough and Dan would realize he had to wrap it up," says Bill Jacobs, Dan's chief of staff when he was governor and later in the Senate. "One time he was just getting going and she coughs. He couldn't understand why because he thought he was doing pretty well. But he wrapped it up. Afterwards, she said, ‘Why did you quit, Dan? That was really good.' And he said, ‘Well, you coughed.' She laughed and said, ‘Well, I really had to cough!' While that's sort of a frivolous thing, it's an example of how they related to one another and the trust that they had."

Wendy Pugnetti, who worked closely with the first lady when she was assistant press secretary in 1973, says, "Nancy is warm, gracious and smart. In today's political world, she would be a shoo-in for elected office. I admired her greatly because she juggled all those roles so well and remained just Nancy."

Former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton, one of Dan's housemates in Olympia when they were young legislators, says he concluded early on that "Nancy Evans is a very strong woman. The influence she had over her husband was both significant and positive. She certainly deserves credit for saving and restoring the mansion, for which she is best known, but her political instincts and achievements go way beyond that."

Lawmakers visiting the mansion were frequently lobbied by the first lady on her favorite causes. Nancy referred to the recalcitrant ones as "some of our 17th Century legislators." Watching his wife in action, the governor would sometimes roll his eyes. And when the guests had gone, she says he might scold, "Did you have to buttonhole that one?"

While possessed of a deft touch, Nancy Evans was also her mother's daughter. Lilith (pronounced "Lie-lith") Bell, who lived to be 94, marched for suffrage as a young woman and had a "protester's streak." Mrs. Bell once told reporters that her feistiness dated to her childhood in Kansas. "I was a preacher's kid, and I resented the feeling other people had that I should be some kind of a model child."

What's in a name?

Nancy in her baby buggy in 1933. Evans family album Nancy in her baby buggy in 1933. Evans family album.

Shakespeare's immortal Juliet declared that a rose "by any other name would smell as sweet." But it's a good thing Nancy's father was joking when he suggested she should be named Vernal Equinoxia since she was born on the first day of spring in 1933. "We're going to call her ‘Vernie' for short," he told the children. "Oh, Dad, you can't do that!" they said.

Her mother wanted to name her Elizabeth Ann, but the obstetrician said "she looks like a Nancy." It's a straightforward name with a dash of playfulness. She has wonderful blue eyes, a warm smile and a contagious laugh. She is simultaneously down to earth and sophisticated, and she always reminds herself that no matter where she is or who she's with, she's still just Nancy Bell from Spokane.

"It's easy to get absorbed in whatever life you're doing without remembering how you got there," Nancy says, recalling the social whirl in Washington, D.C., when Dan was a U.S. senator. "You go to a lot of embassies and on and on. So you can quickly forget who you are and where you come from. … I tried very hard not to." Nor did she ever want her boys afforded special treatment just because their dad was governor. As a former teacher and diligent mom, she closely followed their schoolwork. One day, Dan Jr. brought home a report marked with an "A." Nancy was dubious. "I said, ‘Why did you get an ‘A'?' And he said, ‘Well, that's what they gave me.' Well, I know it was because he was Dan Evans' son, and he didn't deserve an ‘A.' "

She was a surprise

Nancy, left, and a friend enjoying a pony ride while visiting her dad in Montana one summer in the 1930s. Evans family album Nancy, left, and a friend enjoying a pony ride while visiting her dad in Montana one summer in the 1930s. Evans family album.

Nancy's father, William L. Bell, a Stanford-educated mining engineer, was often without work during the Depression. But her parents persevered, and they loved the sound of children's laughter. Nancy was the youngest of four and a surprise. "My father was 54 when I was born," Nancy says, adding with a chuckle, "He was a very proud man, my mother said, and she was furious."

In truth, her parents and siblings - Barbara, 12 years older; Bill Jr., 9 years older, and Mary, seven years older - were all delighted with her. "I was a spoiled brat. I was doted on, and I loved it. I don't deny it," Nancy says, laughing at the memory. Some summers, when her father was working in Montana, Nancy would visit him. "Mother would put me on the train at night. We knew all the porters, everybody who worked on the trains. … I'd be by myself, at age 6, and they'd put me in a sleeper. In the morning, they'd get me up and make sure I got dressed and everything. And my father would be there to greet me at Butte. … They had a house up in the mountains, and I had a little Shetland pony that I rode all the time."

There are sad memories, too. Her brother contracted trench mouth, likely from a public drinking fountain, "and in those days, before antibiotics it ate away at his lower lip." The popular teenager endured several skin grafts. Without medical insurance their parents were hard-pressed. "It was a hard time anyway in mining - a hard time everywhere in America," Nancy says, noting that there were "many mouths to feed" at the Bell house. But her parents loved having young people around. One of Bill Jr.'s friends from college moved in when he was attending law school at Gonzaga. "I never knew how many people were going to be at the dinner table because my brother and sisters would often bring people over, and my mother would say, ‘Stay for dinner.' She could take nothing and make it something." Father, meantime, never lost his droll sense of humor while Mother was "always encouraging" and the enforcer. "My parents brought me up to believe that you could do anything you want to do if you work hard," Nancy says. "There was no sense that I couldn't do things." Like many who grew up in that era, she's thrifty. "To this day I turn off the lights and scold my husband and my children for not doing so."

Nancy and brother Bill during World War II. Evans family album Nancy and brother Bill during World War II. Evans family album.

Then came World War II. Her brother was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis' go-for-broke offensive in the winter of 1944-45. "In the den, my father had on the wall a big map of Europe," Nancy recalls, "and we would try to follow Bill through his letters. You couldn't say exactly where you were because of wartime censorship. Then we learned my brother was coming through Spokane on the train on the way to Madigan Army Hospital near Tacoma. So we all went down to the train station, and I still remember this gaunt young man standing in the doorway of the train on crutches. And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, is that my brother?!' I couldn't believe it was, because he was so thin. He was so haggard looking."

Bill Bell Jr., who inherited his father's sense of humor, always said he was grateful to the Army because he was no longer self-conscious about the trench mouth scars on his lip. "People assumed it was part of the injuries he had received in the war," Nancy says, adding that "he always was a slobbery kisser." That line gives you a good idea of the Bells' upbeat outlook on life.

Nancy was "a very typical teenager," with a lot of chums, many of whom she has stayed in touch with over the years. She had been taking piano lessons since grade school from a gifted German immigrant and played for the choir and other musical productions. She was a cheerleader and rarely without a boyfriend. Many of her brother's friends were also veterans, and Nancy was impressed by their "more sophisticated" humor. "I just ate it up," she says.

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/page3.aspx

Whitman calls

Evans family album Evans family album.

With graduation from Lewis & Clark High School looming in 1950, Nancy applied to several colleges. She had her heart set on Whitman, where her brother and sisters had gone. But Whitman was expensive, and Nancy was entering college on the heels of the Depression and the war. "There was financial difficulty at our house during my teens, but Mother kept saying, ‘Well, don't let this detour you. There is always a way to get what you want to get.' It was always that way with Mother," Nancy recalls. "She said, ‘Work hard, study hard. Maybe you can get a scholarship.' And that's what happened." Nancy competed in a classical music recital to win a music scholarship and was off to Walla Walla. "Even with a scholarship, I'm sure my mother was thinking, ‘Oh, how are we going to do this?'" Nancy worked in the post office at the Student Union Building and served as an assistant to professors to help pay her tuition and expenses.

She loved Whitman's close-knitness and the whole feel of the town. Whitman has always been regarded as a very good college, but Nancy says it's now nationally recognized as "a great school" that draws extraordinary students. "I couldn't get into Whitman now," she says. "It's a wonderful school, and they really believe that the teachers are there to teach and not just do research. The faculty now, as then, spends a lot of time with the students. A lot of mentoring goes on besides the classroom stuff." Her affection for her alma mater and gratitude for the scholarships that allowed her - and thousands of others since - to get a first-rate liberal arts education are boundless. Her years of service as an overseer and trustee represent her commitment to keeping the doors open to bright young people. Dan Evans Jr. graduated with the Class of 1983.

Whitman grads, in other words, are loyal, which a certain University of Washington Engineering School graduate came to appreciate. When Nancy and Dan drove into Walla Walla in 1964 for her 10-year class reunion, the race for governor was in full swing. Everywhere they looked there were "Dan Evans" yard signs and bumper stickers. The only things they knew about him were that he had the good sense to marry a Whitmanite and that he was a Republican - in that order. Nancy says that support helped fuel Dan's upset victory.

Evans family album Evans family album.

Nancy grew up in a household where everyone talked politics. After FDR closed the gold mines during the war, her father fumed about "Roose-a-velt." (In Seattle, Dan Evans' dad, Les, was doing likewise.) However, Mr. Bell wasn't much for meetings. He liked to play devil's advocate in dinner-table debates. Mother was a Republican poll-watcher every election day, and Nancy's siblings - being much older - were active in the party. Bill Jr. managed some campaigns and Barbara Bell was a precinct committeewoman. "Everybody would enter into the discussions, so it was very much a part of our family life."

Nancy was a free-thinker, intellectually feisty like her mother, but not much of a political animal and no public speaker. When she was elected president of her sorority, Delta Gamma, her senior year, she was obliged to give the annual report for the spring alumnae banquet at the grand Marcus Whitman Hotel. "I didn't think I would get through it. I remember just gulping - ah, it was dreadful - and swallowing and not being able to go on with the words. … I remember somebody afterwards leaning over and saying, ‘Gosh that was tough, wasn't it?' And I said, ‘Yes, that was very tough!' It was very memorable to me because I was so bad. I could get up and play the piano … but to speak was a real challenge. I never have been a very good public speaker, but I'm better at it now than I was."

One of the fellas she dated during her college years was Bill Cowles, heir to Spokane's two leading newspapers, The Spokesman-Review and Chronicle, and considerable real estate in the Inland Empire. "We were just friends; nothing ever serious," Nancy says, but he was a good-looking guy and a great catch for any girl. "He came to the door to pick me up, and, looking down his glasses, my father said, ‘What are your prospects, young man?' I was just, ‘Oh, God, Daddy!' He knew full well who Bill Cowles was, but he would do that to any man who came to the house to pick up any of his daughters."

Camas or Seattle?

Graduating from Whitman in 1954 with what amounted to a dual major in music and education, Nancy received several job offers. The two most enticing were at Camas, where she could head up the music education department, and in the Shoreline School District north of Seattle, where she would be a grade-school music teacher. The Camas job paid a lot more, but it was a rural mill town. Seattle had more attractions, including concerts and thousands of college-educated people her own age. On indoctrination day for new teachers, Nancy and a pal from Whitman met two freshly minted teachers from the University of Puget Sound. The four girls rented a house in the University District from "a wonderful little old lady." Over their front door they hung a sign that combined the names of their sororities: "Chi Chi Delta Tri."

Miss Bell with a student in 1957. Evans family album Miss Bell with a student in 1957. Evans family album.

Shoreline Elementary School was brand new in 1954. In addition to a music teacher, they needed someone to set up a library. Miss Bell, who loved books, promptly volunteered and winged it for the first year. She returned home to Spokane for the summer break and took graduate courses at Eastern Washington State College in Cheney to fulfill her teaching credential requirements and learn more about librarianship and storytelling for grade-schoolers. "Another new school came along later, so I was teaching music at two schools and being the librarian as well. They gave me a budget and I got to order all these books." The storytelling was fun, but she really enjoyed teaching music to every class - kindergarten through sixth grade.

"One day the principal asked me to give a little talk at one of the PTA meetings. And I thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to talk about?' " She collected an armload of tambourines, cymbals, triangles and wood blocks - the stuff she routinely handed out to kindergartners to get them enthused about making music. "I passed those out at the PTA meeting because I'd been hearing parents say, ‘Well, I can't sing, so I'm sure that Johnny can't sing at all.' That was my lesson for the night. I said, ‘Don't ever say to your children, ‘I can't do this, therefore you probably can't either,' because you don't know that for a fact. Give them a chance.' " That's the Nancy Evans Theory of Elementary Education in a nutshell.

An intriguing young man

Her social life was also blossoming. "When I arrived in Seattle, I met a lot of new people and really had a wonderful time. I met a lot of great guys." One was a 32-year-old civil engineer named Dan Evans. A former naval officer, he was interested in politics and had been named the "Outstanding Freshman Legislator" of 1957.

That summer, one of Nancy's ski pals was crewing on a sailboat with Dan. She still remembers his exact words: "Nancy, I've got a young man I think you should meet." Dan joined the group for a weekend jaunt to Stevens Pass in January of 1958. He was quiet, attentive and "very good looking," Nancy says. "He kept coming along on our ski trips. Then one time I fell. All the other guys, they'd just go on, but Dan stopped. And then he asked me out."

Skiing at Sun Valley in 1956. Evans family album Skiing at Sun Valley in 1956. Evans family album.

Dan's version: "She only learned to ski because she was trying to keep up with all the guys she was dating or went skiing with. They were all pretty good skiers who wanted to go right to the top of the mountain" but "she stayed down below." Immediately smitten, Dan decided he would stick with her. Good decision. When she veered under a clump of trees "I had to get in there and pull her out. So we skied together. Then we all got together at lunch." At day's end they stopped for burgers at a diner. "It was just a place with eight or nine stools all along the bar … and I made darn sure that I sat next to her."

Nancy's first impression? "He was very quiet and shy. … He hadn't dated much. The thing I remember most, other than that he was a very nice person and a very handsome man, was his intrigue. Each time I went out with him I learned something new. I saw a man of depth. He grew on me. … He was not one of these people who just came on the first time and you learned it all. I found that very intriguing. ... I loved everything I learned. … He already had done a lot of interesting things: He was an engineer, interested in politics, athletic, very competitive … served in the Navy. There were all these things that he'd done. He had a wooden sailboat that we ended up spending a lot of time sanding and waxing and varnishing. … I learned to love sailing. We would often go over to his house and sometimes have dinner."

The sailor was making headway, but the competition was fierce. One night when he arrived at Nancy's apartment to pick her up, Dan had to make a phone call. There was a datebook by the phone, so he used some naval intelligence. "It had a little rubber stamp chained to it, with the name ‘Bob.' It was one of her boyfriends. … She was really very popular. So I opened it to see what was there and here's ‘Bob,' ‘Bob' and ‘Bob.' And then there's other dates that she had (made as well). So I carefully marked down all of the free nights I could find and made sure that I asked her out on those free nights. I really wanted to see her more frequently. And I figured, well, if she says ‘no' because she's busy and it was a free day I'll know I'm in trouble."

That spring, Nancy learned just how persistent he was. On the opening day of boating season, Dan was at the wheel of his sailboat, stopwatch in hand, ready to race. "We were about 45 seconds from the start and she decided that was the time to jump into my lap and put her arm around me. I just pushed her away. … And I said, ‘Nancy, we're only 30 seconds away from the start!' She was just really upset, but she found out how competitive I was."

In October, they took a weekend trip to Victoria with Nancy's sister Barbara and brother-in-law, Bill Ludders. They stayed at the Empress - the guys in one room, of course, and the girls in another - and had a wonderful time. "And then we came home to Seattle - back to my apartment. Dan said, ‘Well, let's go for a walk.' And I thought, ‘Well, OK, Sunday night.' So we walked up to the playfield … and we sat on the bench, and he proposed! On Saturday night of the week preceding, I had been proposed to on that same bench."

She had said "no" immediately to the earlier proposal, even though it was "very sweet." Then when Dan proposed, "all I could think of was the week before. I was so stunned because I really had not expected it. I just couldn't say ‘yes' right then. I said, "Well, I've just got to think about it. Give me three days."

June 6, 1959: The newlyweds toast one another as their parents look on. At left , Les and Irma Evans; at right, Lilith and Lawrence Bell. Evans family album June 6, 1959: The newlyweds toast one another as their parents look on. At left , Les and Irma Evans; at right, Lilith and Lawrence Bell. Evans family album.

Dan was crestfallen. Nancy was confused. He slunk home. She called her mother in Spokane. "I said, ‘Dan proposed and I don't know what to do!' And Mother started laughing. She'd never even met Dan, of course. I said, ‘Mother, don't laugh. It's serious.' And she said, ‘Well, of course it is. I'm laughing because how can I tell you what to do?' So she was no help. I just had to assimilate the whole idea. Then Dan came over Wednesday night and I said, ‘Yes.' I knew, you know. It was just ‘bingo!' "

Dan says, "I was so excited I just couldn't handle it: ‘I've got to tell somebody. I've got to tell somebody!' " He still had a key to his parents' house, which was only a few blocks from Nancy's apartment. Even though it was close to midnight, he "charged up the stairs," knocked on his parents' bedroom door and woke them up. Startled, they sat bolt upright in bed and said almost in unison, "What's going on?" Little wonder. That sort of exuberance - nocturnal or otherwise - was way out of character for their son.

Dan's mother "just broke into tears, she was so happy." His father, more reserved even than his son, just beamed. Nancy quips that Irma Evans "was just delighted that her oldest son was dating. It didn't matter what the girl was like." In truth, Dan's parents adored her and the feeling was mutual.

Nancy with her proud father. Evans family album Nancy with her proud father. Evans family album.

They were engaged on October 28th, 1958. Her parents came over from Spokane to meet Dan for the first time. Nancy was cooking dinner. Mother and daughter immediately repaired to the kitchen, leaving Daddy to work over Dan. "So there I am sitting with this kind of big, very impressive-looking man, and he says, ‘Well, young man, my other sons-in-law always came to me and asked for my daughter's hand in marriage.' I'm, ‘Ga, ga, ga.' I thought he was completely serious. And I really had a tough time even responding. It wasn't until later that I found out he was just putting me on."

Evans family album Evans family album.

Dan passed another test: He sat attentively through Nancy's nemesis - the grade school Christmas program, a command performance of her charges' musical skills to the tune of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Frosty the Snowman."

"I'd arrange it so that we would have something on the stage of the lunchroom/auditorium/gym - a production. Somehow we got all the kids, plus all the parents, in that room." The future governor took note of the future first lady's organizational skills and grace under pressure. The show came off without a hitch. "I was quite pleased with myself afterwards, and Dan was very impressed. Each class had its own number and we had soloists. It was a lot of work."

They were married on June 6, 1959, at the Congregational Church in Spokane. The day's loveliest photo features Nancy, gorgeous in white lace, adjusting her proud 81-year-old father's boutonnière.

Dan took his bride on a honeymoon trip to Carmel and San Francisco in the first new car he'd ever owned - a "big-finned, gold Plymouth" - and took movies all along the way with his trusty Bolex.

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/page4.aspx

Passionately moderate

Five young Republican state representatives in 1957: from left, Joel Pritchard, Dan Evans, Chuck Moriarity, Jimmy Andersen and Slade Gorton. Washington State Archives Five young Republican state representatives in 1957: from left, Joel Pritchard, Dan Evans, Chuck Moriarity, Jimmy Andersen and Slade Gorton. Washington State Archives.

Early on, Nancy had met most of the Dan Evans rat pack of bright young Republicans - notably Joel Pritchard, Chuck Moriarty, Jimmy Andersen, Slade Gorton, Don Moos and Tom Copeland. Dan was a classic progressive Republican in the Teddy Roosevelt mold. An Eagle Scout, he was a vigorous outdoorsman who loved to hike and sail. Early on, he was concerned about the environment and social justice issues. When he became governor, someone aptly described his agenda as "passionately moderate." The best thing about Dan, Nancy says, is that he always "tried to bring people together." His most famous quote is "I would rather cross the aisle than cross the people." Nancy was his political soul-mate - more liberal, perhaps, in some ways, but with solid instincts about social justice issues and fiscal responsibility. Best of all, the earnest engineer dubbed "Straight Arrow" now had a wife who turned out to be a natural-born campaigner.

"Remember," Nancy says, "I grew up listening about politics. … My parents loved to talk politics. In fact, later when she came to live with us, my mother would say, "Now Dan, I think you ought to think about this." And he'd say, "Yes, yes ‘Gom.' That's our nickname for my mother because that was what her first grandchild called her. So politics came very easily to me. When I went down to Olympia the first time I was younger than they were. So they all sort of took me under their wing."

When they were getting serious, did Dan ever say, "Well, someday I'm going to be governor; we'll have three kids, and we'll live in a mansion and have teas and receptions"? Nancy guffaws: "Obviously not! I probably would have said ‘no.' … There was no talk about anything like that. I didn't know what I was getting into. At that time, the Legislature was two or three months every two years. I had no idea he would ever run for governor, and I don't think he did either."

Trip of a lifetime

Nancy quit teaching after their marriage. That September, Dan came home from the engineering office with a surprise announcement: "Well, I quit my job. Why don't we plan a trip?" Flabbergasted, Nancy said, "Well, jeepers, don't you have to get a job first?" Dan said they could afford it and they'd never regret it. "We had some money because we had both been out of school for long enough, and Nancy was very frugal," Dan recalls, "even though she didn't earn much as a teacher. And I had saved some money. So why not?"

They wrote letters to tourist bureaus all over Europe, and ordered a car to pick up over there. On December 30th, they flew to Los Angeles, saw the Huskies shellac Wisconsin in the 1960 Rose Bowl game, then flew nonstop to Copenhagen on SAS. They proceeded to have the time of their lives, skiing for a month before wandering at will - Germany, Spain, Portugal and Paris - Europe for two on $10 a day, literally, except for lift tickets and gasoline. Not only will they always have Paris, Nancy was pregnant with Dan Jr. by the time they were homeward bound on a new ocean liner. "I can tell you where and when, but I'm not going to," she says with a wink and a laugh. "Our son knows."

Dan entered into a happy engineering partnership with Vic Gray. Daniel Jackson Evans Jr. was born on November 25, 1960. They moved from a one-bedroom apartment at Madison Park to their first house in Laurelhurst, atop a hill east of the UW campus.

Speaker John L. O’Brien glares at Dan Evans as the coup unfolds. Seattle Argus Speaker John L. O'Brien glares at Dan Evans as the coup unfolds. Seattle Argus.

Daniel Jackson Evans Sr., representing the 43rd District, was chosen House Republican floor leader in 1961. The braintrust of Evans, Pritchard, Gorton et al, had bigger things in mind. In 1963, they put together a coalition with dissident Democrats to oust Speaker John L. O'Brien, a quintessential Irish Catholic pol who since 1955 had wielded the gavel for a record four terms. They replaced him with a conservative "D," William S. "Big Daddy" Day, a Spokane chiropractor who was "absolutely" willing to give the Republicans some committee chairmanships. O'Brien was out-foxed, out-maneuvered and "out-flummoxed," as Jim Dolliver, the GOP consigliere, put it. "He didn't realize what was happening until the knife was going in. … He came storming down the center aisle," but it was too late. The young R's had staged a coup. The enduring image of a decisive moment in the history of the Washington Legislature is O'Brien standing in the aisle glaring down at young Dan Evans, sitting stony-faced in the front row.

With his clean-cut image, Dan Evans was getting noticed around the state. In the spring of ‘63, after the Legislature adjourned, State Rep. Herb Hadley of Longview decided Dan ought to be governor and helped launch a "Draft Dan Evans Committee." Hadley had won election to the House in one of 1962's biggest upsets and was thinking big during a coffee hour with some of his Cowlitz County pals. Hadley was a real estate man and the descendant of one of Longview's first families - "a classic go-getter in the Jaycees mold," says ex-senator Sid Snyder of Long Beach, one of the Legislature's foremost historians.

That May, Dan was at work in his engineering office when an AP reporter called. "She says, ‘What's this about a Draft Dan Evans Committee?' I just laughed and I said, ‘Draft Dan Evans for what?' And she said, ‘Well, governor, of course.' And I said, ‘I don't know anything about it.' And I didn't. They didn't check with me; they just decided to do it. … Herb was an enthusiast. He wanted me to run, so those guys just thought, ‘Well, we'll goose this thing along.' That got me to thinking about it enough that I got Slade, Joel Pritchard, Jim Dolliver, all of those guys, together and we met at my house."

Nancy was rolling her eyes. "He'd come home saying, ‘Well, they're talking about this.' And I'd say, ‘Oh God!' Initially I was very skeptical of the whole prospect. I just didn't think he had a chance. I had good reason to think that way and I was pregnant with number two, Mark. That was my focus."

Bucking the tide

It was shaping up to be a Democratic year, with Lyndon Johnson looking unassailable. John F. Kennedy had been murdered in Dallas, and Americans were likely disinclined to have three presidents in the space of 14 months. Johnson was also running against a Republican Party that was busy choosing up sides - Goldwater conservatives vs. Rockefeller progressives. In Washington State, Democrat Al Rosellini was seeking a third term as governor. Conventional wisdom was that LBJ would have long coattails. Dan Evans barely registered a blip on the pollsters' radar. Nancy Evans told her husband something she would always say over the years whenever they were at a crossroads: "Look - you do what you think you ought to do, and I'll be there."

The other potential Republican candidates for governor included former congressman Tom Pelly, Congresswoman Catherine May, Seattle Mayor Gordon Clinton, well-known Seattle businessman Joe Gandy and Richard G. Christensen. Only 33, Christensen was a hard-charging Lutheran minister fresh from a narrow loss to U.S. Senator Warren G. Magnuson. The Republican Central Committee took a poll that June, Dan recalls, "and I was sixth out of six. I was dead last with, I think, four or five percent. And the only good news in the poll was that when they asked, ‘Are these names familiar to you,' or some question like that, I was one percent less on who knew me than who would vote for me. And we said, ‘Well, there's something in there!' "

Nancy with Danny and Mark in 1964. Evans family album Nancy with Danny and Mark in 1964. Evans family album.

Dan and Nancy's dear friend, State Rep. Joel Pritchard - a future congressman and lieutenant governor - was the strategy guy. He told Dan, "What you've got to do is invite 200 of your best friends to a 7 a.m. breakfast, ask them for money and see what happens." Dan said, "Well, geez, Joel, 7 o'clock - how about 7:30?" "Nope," said Pritchard. "Make it tough because you want to see who your friends really are." Some 140 Evans fans showed up with checkbooks. "We ended up with a second breakfast because I kept getting calls from people saying, ‘Hey, Why didn't you invite me?' We asked them to pledge or raise $50 apiece." In short order, the fledgling campaign had a $12,000 war chest. Even Nancy was impressed - still dubious, but impressed nevertheless. Besides, Dan had made two things clear from the get-go: "I will not run a deficit. I don't want to owe anybody. And I won't contribute any of my own money to the campaign, mostly because I don't have any, and I don't believe in it anyhow."

Mark Lawrence Evans was born on September 20, 1963. Nancy was now the busy mother of two. Dan was an engineer by day, politician by night and weekend, although he always carefully blocked out family time. By January of 1964, despite its enthusiasm, the Evans campaign was flat broke and "just gasping." Then two members of the Weyerhaeuser family contributed a total of $5,000, "which was huge," Dan recalls. A second poll showed him up to 11 percent. Christensen's lead had shrunk but it was still commanding. "Gandy was below us but pretty close. I was disappointed because we had worked hard for six months. But Joel Pritchard said, ‘No, no, no, don't worry. This kind of thing builds. It's going to come faster and faster as time goes on. We've got a lot better campaign organization than anybody else and a lot more volunteers.' "

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/page5.aspx

5-

No deals

By the spring of ‘64, the Evans campaign was gaining steam and the Gandy people wanted to cut a deal. "They tried to say, ‘Well, Joel, he'll only run for one term. Why don't you have Dan run for lieutenant governor and then we'll turn it over to you?' " Pritchard said, "Nothin' doin'."

The state GOP Convention was at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. Cannily, Evans and Pritchard arranged with Don Moos, the permanent chairman of the convention, to have their demonstration last so they could gauge how all the other candidates had done. Gandy, the mover and shaker behind Seattle's Century 21 World's fair, had a brass band. Christensen had "women on the warpath" in Indian costumes.

"There was this huge Christiensen contingent," Nancy recalls. "And that's the part I hate about conventions - all that hoopla. I just don't like it. I can still remember standing outside the foyer of the center. Somebody on the stage was announcing, ‘And now here we have Joe Gandy and Mrs. Gandy!' Laurene Gandy was just a lovely lady, and I can still see her, just putting her chin up saying to herself, ‘OK, I'm going to do this!' And here was this lovely lady walking down amid the hoopla, hoopla, hoopla. Then they announced Dan, and it wasn't quite as much hoopla." But Dan told her there was a key difference: "The delegates were the ones that erupted into the aisles for us. Joel Pritchard had all the smarts." He'd ordered signs with "Evans" spelled out vertically so that when the delegates bobbed them up and down everyone could read what they said and they wouldn't get in anyone's way. "They had all these signs hidden down under the seats. When they started (waving them and hollering) it was so amazing! Nancy and I stood up there on the stage waving at friends as they went by. And I almost wept when I saw my father, who was the epitome of the old reticent engineer. He had a twinkle in his eye and there he was down on the floor with two signs - not one." Nancy says, "This quiet, dignified person was waving as wildly as he could. Dan had never seen his father doing anything like that." They both savored the moment.

Nancy's mother was watching the boys. Sadly, William Bell had died in 1962 at the age of 83. (His friends all called him by his middle name, Lawrence; the grandkids called him "Bompa.") But he knew Dan was going places and he was enormously proud of his son-in-law. Had he lived, Nancy says he would have been right next to Dan's dad - two old Republican engineers, whooping it up.

1964 State Republican Convention erupts with Evans signs. Washington State Library 1964 State Republican Convention erupts with Evans signs. Washington State Library.

On the road

"We did hundreds of hours of coffee hours," Dan says, "and having Nancy along was a huge asset to me." With a second child on the way they had invited her widowed mother to come over from Spokane and stay with them. Lilith Bell had said, "Well, OK, I will for just a couple of months." She lived with them for the next 20 years and enriched their lives enormously. With "Gom" as much more than a babysitter, Nancy could hit the campaign trail with enthusiasm, confident that the boys were in good hands.

Pin-Christensen

"We stormed out of (the convention) just really on a high," Dan says. In the next poll, Christensen was down to 42 percent and Evans was up to 29, leaving Gandy in the dust. Gandy's handlers made one last stab at cutting a deal before throwing in the towel. That made it a two-man race for the Republican nomination. Evans, ever the engineer, had been tracking his progress on a graph that he still has. Joel Pritchard kept saying, "Just watch - We're going to accelerate!" They calculated they were going to catch and pass Christensen around August 15th.

Dan Evans first election pin

No one knows for sure when it happened. In fact, with Pritchard a notable exception, Dan recalls everyone saying, "This is going to be a tight race. It's going to be right up to the end."

On Primary Election Day, Dan Evans crushed Christensen by 100,000 votes. Christensen, like Joe Gandy before him when the jig was up, conceded gracefully, pinning on a bright red Evans campaign button and declaring, "My task now is to join with this man and make him the next governor of this state…" The Rosellini camp, meantime, had tried to woo crossover votes in the primary with ads that said "Thinking Republicans CANNOT: ‘Go with Goldwater,' ‘Crusade with Christensen' … or ‘Endure with Evans.' "

Over the next eight weeks, Joel Pritchard was the James Carville of the 1964 governor's race. They emphasized Evans' Eagle Scout image and characterized Rosellini as an old pol who'd had his turn. In Washington it was as if Dan Evans was the new frontier, with a platform dubbed a "Blueprint for Progress." "Let's get our state moving again," the Evans brochures and ads declared, promising "a new legislative program designed to end the drift and stagnation of the Rosellini administration."

The emerging Evans wing of the party - which would come to be called "Mainstream Republicans" - was taking care to not hitch its bandwagon to Goldwater's. To borrow a phrase from George W. Bush, the Arizona senator was "a divider, not a uniter." Goldwater had once wished out loud that he could just lob a nuclear missile "into the men's room of the Kremlin." The right-wing John Birch Society loved that line, and it was already suspicious of Dan Evans. With good reason. (In a famous speech to the Republican State Central Committee in the fall of 1965, Evans took stock of the GOP debacle he had managed to survive, declaring: "It is now time to discard hyphenated Republicanism. The Republican Party did not achieve greatness nor will it regain greatness by being the party of radicalism or of the lunatic fringe. Extremists of neither the Right nor the Left contribute to the strength of America or her political institutions. Both feed on fear, frustration, hate and hopelessness. … The John Birch Society and its frightened satellites … meet none of the tests and follow none of the traditions of the Republican Party.")

Always positive

Dan was the underdog but increasingly upbeat as the final two months evaporated in a blur of speeches, coffee hours and commercials. At mid-October the press reported that he was being outspent by more than 4 to 1. His expenditures since the primary were estimated at $100,000, while "ad agency observers" calculated that Rosellini had spent $450,000.

"He was always positive," Nancy says. "He was always very good at understanding what the numbers meant at that moment in time. So he wasn't often surprised about things." Pretty soon, "I had a feeling ‘this may happen.' Then I think I began thinking, ‘But what if it does? What will I do then? What's going to happen to us?'

"The one thing about that campaign that I loved was not just the people we met out in the communities; it was the people here in Seattle, our friends, and others who became really good, life-long friends. You could just feel they were working for Dan because they really wanted to be there. It was sort of like the Obama campaign: They really wanted to be a part of it. I'm not comparing Dan to Obama in any way, but this was really a mission that they were on - and they were having fun. And we had fun. It was so personal. We really were with the campaign workers a lot - and you just enjoy being together. …I have really good memories about that campaign."

Emmett Watson, the Seattle P-I's popular columnist, called Evans "a first-rate legislator … with a sincere abhorrence of political lunacy." Ross Cunningham of The Seattle Times said Dan represented "a combination of pragmatism and idealism," and The Raymond Herald & Advertiser, the leading paper in a solidly Democratic county, opined that "If anyone can restore harmony and respect between the executive and legislative branches of state government it is Evans."

Dan never wanted to be with a lot of people on election night - at least not before the ballots were all counted. "He wants to sit and watch that television and keep track of the numbers," Nancy says. "So conversation is not in there. And that has no exception. So my memory of Election Night 1964 is that we had a room at the Olympic Hotel with his family and my family, all the brothers and sisters and that sort of thing … And of course things were a little slower in counting the results in those days. But then when we knew he had won we went to the campaign office downtown."

Dan Evans had been elected Washington's 16th governor with 140,000 votes to spare. He was 39. Nancy was 31. They'd been married five years. The campaign headquarters was going bonkers. "I remember that Dan was talking with KING-TV up on the stage … And then the reporter had his microphone right in front of my mouth. But I couldn't hear his questions because it was so noisy. And I know I stood there looking like ‘Duh.' I think I was actually in a bit of a daze. I just sort of went, ‘What did you say?' … I felt so stupid standing up there. Then I was overwhelmed - in a good way."

Did she learn anything new about her husband by watching him on the campaign trail? - see him evolve? "Absolutely. … I really saw him grow with his understanding of issues in a broader sense. Being around the state so much more and talking to so many more people, getting different sides to every issue. I think he had a wonderful understanding of the major issues for our state, and he learned how to articulate them in front of people. …Environmentalism came very easily to Dan because of his old Boy Scout days," Nancy says. "Ever since he was a kid at Camp Parsons he had been hiking in the Olympics. To this day he takes a hike every summer in the Olympics or the Cascades. … But it was never defined in those days as the ‘environment' and ‘ecology,' and all those words that we are so accustomed to today. But when that whole movement came along, he was at the forefront because he felt so strongly about it."

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/page6.aspx

6

She barely made it

Inauguration Day, January 13, 1965, dawned with Dan in Olympia, where the smoke was just clearing from a late-night battle over redistricting. Nancy was in Seattle, hustling the kids through their Cheerios and schlepping stuff into the station wagon. For a while the night before, the Republicans were threatening to swear in Dan at midnight to thwart any fast moves by the Democrats. Neither of them got much sleep. "I had to dismantle the crib that Mark slept in and put it in the trunk, and get everybody up and dressed and fed and ready to drive to Olympia to see Dan sworn in at noon."

Up and down the block, their neighbors had gathered to say goodbye. "It was wonderful. … So we say goodbye, and I'm putting my inaugural gown on top of everything, over the crib in the back. The boys are in the back seat." She glanced in the rear-view mirror as they headed up the hill and saw people waving their arms, yelling, jumping up and down. "The trunk door was open and everything is falling out, including my dress," which, fortunately, was in a plastic bag. Tire tracks on a ball gown would have been quite a fashion statement.

Nancy with Mark and Danny at the Governor’s Mansion in 1965. Evans family album Nancy with Mark and Danny at the Governor's Mansion in 1965. Evans family album.

She stuffed everything back in and high-tailed it to Olympia, arriving about an hour before the ceremony. The Rosellinis had finished moving out just before she arrived. "I had arranged for some high school kids to be there at the mansion to help carry in suitcases and to do the crib." But they couldn't figure out how it went together, so Dan's father, another engineer, came to the rescue. "Then I had to get the kids something to eat! At least I was dressed. I had just worn whatever I was going to wear for the ceremony. But the kids, we had to get them dressed. Mark was just 16 months old, and we had to get him down for his nap, and then be over there at noon. Ah, it was amazing! But we made it."

In his inaugural address, the new governor declared, "We cannot be blind to the growing requirements of health and welfare. Nor can we be indifferent to the dangers of stifling competitive spirit. We cannot solve the problems of the present with the outworn dogmas of the past. We must be bold in charting our course, resolute in our determination, compassionate in our assessment of human needs, firm in our policies, just in our laws and efficient in our administration. … This administration is not frightened by the word ‘liberal,' nor is it ashamed of the word ‘conservative.' It does not believe that the words ‘fiscal responsibility' are old fashioned, nor will it ever fear to spend money if money needs to be spent."

As usual, Nancy had read the speech in advance and felt it was both eloquent and "very timely," given the turbulent currents sweeping America. "I don't remember if I offered any suggestions. I sometimes did. But I was very proud of him and loved sitting in the audience and watching him deliver that speech, even though it was after a very long day."

In addition to multiple receptions, there had been a celebratory banquet before the Inaugural Ball. The governor and first lady came back to their new home to change into formal clothes. Mark was sound asleep, but 4-year-old Danny, still excited from the hubbub of the day, greeted them in his pajamas and bathrobe - together with a crew from KING-TV. Not realizing what she was getting into, Nancy had agreed weeks before to give KING's Chuck Herring an exclusive Inauguration Day interview. When the time came, however, she was feeling more like Lucy Arnaz than Jackie Kennedy. "I don't know why we ever even allowed it," Dan recalls, shaking his head at the memory of how hectic things were.

"So we're sitting in the living room being interviewed," Nancy says - she in her ball gown, Dan in his white tie and tails, with Danny between them, squirming with excitement at the prospect of being on TV. "Dan always remembers it so well because Chuck Herring said, ‘And, Mrs. Evans, you are the youngest First Lady at 32.' And I say, ‘I'm 31.' Dan always thought that was very funny." Then Herring said, "Can I have a tour?" And Nancy goes, "Sure Chuck, come with me!" Danny gleefully scampered ahead. "I'm trying to take his hand and be a mother. I can look back at it and smile, but at the time I was just thinking, ‘Couldn't you just stand here and be a nice, quiet little boy for a few moments?' But, no, he was very excited in this new big house, with a new big playroom."

Dan says she pulled it off with aplomb. "She explained everything beautifully. ‘Here is this silver service from the battlecruiser Olympia,' and all that sort of thing. After it was all over I said, ‘Nancy, how did you know all of that stuff?' And she said, ‘Well, I just listened when I'd come to receptions' " when he was in the Legislature. "When I look back on all that I think of what a miracle it really was. We had been married for about four years; we lived in a small little house in Laurelhurst. If we had more than six people for dinner you had to turn the table 90 degrees and move it out into the living room. And suddenly you're into a huge mansion with all of the formality and all of the people." Nancy clearly was up to the challenge. "She didn't miss a step."

The first couple did more hand-shaking than dancing at the Inaugural Ball. They were in a receiving line for more than three hours. Nancy's feet - and right hand - were aching. "There were so many people; we had so many friends, so many supporters. This was so exciting to them. I felt sorry for us, but worse for all those people who were getting pushed and shoved."

They returned to the mansion to find it packed with revelers. "So we finally went to bed at 4 in the morning - just exhausted because it had been a long day." Dan Evans left at 7 for his first day as governor. A bleary-eyed Nancy - who will tell you emphatically that she is not a morning person - was also up early to feed the boys, take an inventory of her new home and get ready for a new round of obligatory teas.

‘Pretty, practical…"

Dan and Nancy try out the governor's chair for the first time. Washington State Archives Dan and Nancy try out the governor's chair for the first time. Washington State Archives.

In the beginning, the press invariably portrayed her as the little woman - a resourceful little woman, but the little woman nonetheless. She has "served as the flower in her husband's buttonhole at a score of important social functions," the AP noted. The Olympian's post-election headline on Nov. 11, 1964, was of the same genre: "State's New First Lady Pretty, Practical." But it did have the added advantage of being true. "The first is obvious," the story said. "The second was revealed when Nancy Evans said she hadn't made plans for moving to Olympia. ‘We were so busy campaigning, and it seemed unnecessary to make plans we might never use,' she explained." But "Mrs. Daniel J. Evans has plenty of other attributes that helped her husband become the state's youngest governor … She has poise, a warm personality and an interest in politics."

Nancy at a Republican reception. Washington State Archives Nancy at a Republican reception.Washington State Archives.

With undertones of a write-up on a 4-H horse-judging competition, the story added that "she also had good feet and an excellent digestion. The feet, encased in needle-heeled shoes, traveled the long campaign trail beside those of her husband and she ate everything she was served. ‘Well, sometimes I passed up the bread and potatoes at dinner,' she admitted, ‘but I ate cookies and nuts at all those coffee hours. And I gained 15 pounds." She said she enjoyed campaigning because it took her to "every nook and cranny of this state," and although she "at first dreaded it," she quickly found it was fun, and everyone she met "was so friendly." The story concluded prophetically: "At 31, Nancy Evans may be the state's youngest first lady, but there will be few challenges she can't handle." As late as 1972 writers were still reducing her to a stereotype - the "pretty, pert wife who is the kind of mother very quick to wipe chocolate off the mouths of her three boys after an ice cream cone."

Settling in

Dan, Nancy, Danny, Mark and "Gom," together with enough animals to stock an ark, quickly discovered that their new 19-room home was old, with clanking radiators, a leaky roof and a mishmash of furniture, most of it pedestrian. The cold water faucets would often yield hot water, and vice versa. One bonus, Nancy quips, was that sometimes when you used the toilet you could "warm your bottom." On the other hand, if you plugged in a fan you could nearly electrocute Boots the cat.

The foyer of the Mansion in 1970. Washington State Archives The foyer of the Mansion in 1970. Washington State Archives.

Ethel Rosellini warned her that being the de facto CEO of the mansion wouldn't be all tea and roses. "Ethel told me about the night they were entertaining the crown prince of Norway or some such dignitary at a very big formal dinner party. It was being catered from Seattle, and when they plugged in the 50-cup coffee pots in the tiny kitchen the fuses blew and the lights went out." Oh, and another thing: There was one bathroom on the first floor. Nancy vividly recalls the day a busload of Seattle retirees pulled up in the driveway. "They all had to go to the bathroom - all 35 or 40 of them. I told them, ‘There's one back there. That's it.' " Incredulous, they began to wander, looking for bathrooms. "These were elderly people. They had an urgent need. I understood that then and even better now. And there was not a thing we could do."

One day, a 7-year-old from the neighborhood came over to play with Dan Jr. The boy's dad happened to be a carpet layer. The kid took note of the threadbare treads on the grand staircase. "Gee, Mrs. Evans, you need to get my father over here. Your carpets are really old!" To which Nancy replied, "You're absolutely right. I'd like to do that."

Mom leads a sing-a-long in 1967. Washington State Archives Mom leads a sing-a-long in 1967. Washington State Archives.

Every November, friends would come over to help address the thousands of Christmas cards the first family sent out. They'd set up tables in the ballroom and huddle around portable heaters. But the place was still so cold that they wore overcoats as they addressed envelopes with numb fingers.

Still, Dan says Nancy did "a spectacular job of making the wretchedly decrepit mansion look pretty good" for everyone from Cub Scouts to dignitaries - including Pearl Bailey, J.P. Patches and Victor Borge. Especially during holidays she worked her magic to make it a home that radiated warmth. The mansion was "filled with grandparents, sisters, brothers, cousins and what seemed like squadrons of young children," Dan says. They'd be tricycling down the halls; skidding across the polished ballroom floor in stocking feet; playing hide-and-seek and lining up shortest to tallest so dad could take the obligatory movies before the presents were opened. Then Nancy, the former music teacher, would play the piano to accompany Christmas carols.

"As I think back on those years," says Dan Jr., "what strikes me the most and maybe the greatest compliment I can pay to Mom is how ‘normal' life was from my perspective. With three children of my own now, it is easier to relate my experiences to those of my parents. … It's truly amazing now to look back and recall how simple my life felt for how abnormal it could have been. My mom and dad both had a hand in that, but it was really my mother who made the mansion a home where three boys could and did feel right at home. We had birthday parties … had friends over to play, turned the Ballroom into an indoor basketball court, and the grand staircase was a great place to slide down the steps on sleds. I flew more than one model plane in flames from the second floor deck and played for hours in the woods behind the mansion."

Dan makes the cover of Time magazine. The Legacy Project Collection Dan makes the cover of Time magazine. The Legacy Project Collection.

Dad won a second term in 1968, after a turn on the national stage as keynoter for the Republican National Convention. Time magazine put the young governor on its cover, and Dan was in the running for a spot on the ticket with Nixon before - ever the contrarian - he endorsed Nelson Rockefeller. Many of his advisers were disappointed. Nancy was proud of him.

Their family had grown to three sons - Danny, 8, Mark, 5, and Bruce, 2. In addition to Peggy and Boots, there was a big tabby named Scamper, and kittens of course, plus bunnies, gerbils, grandmother's guppies and, at one time, a couple of turkeys who didn't last long, nor did one of the hapless gerbils, who got loose and provided a snack for the cats.

By the way, Nancy says the only people who ask her whether Bruce was born in the mansion are men. Women chortle at that naiveté, although if St. Peter Hospital had been located then where it is now - way across town - instead of just around the corner and up the hill, Bruce might have been history's second mansion baby. He arrived in a hurry.

The first - and to date only - mansion baby was Margaret Hay, born upstairs on Nov. 30, 1910. She was the sixth child of Gov. Marion Hay and his wife Lizzie. The Hays were the first first family to live in the new house. How it came to be built is a story that features another formidable first lady.

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The 14,000-square-foot, red brick Georgian Revival house, though handsome, was constructed in a hurry at the wooded crest of Capitol Point in 1908 for the relatively munificent sum of $35,000. There'd been a severe national recession the year before, but the Northwest fared better than the rest of the country. This was the land of opportunity. Washington had been a state for only 19 years.

By the spring of 1908, Olympia was sprouting new buildings. The ballyhooed Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition - Seattle's first world's fair— was set to open the next year. The whole state would be in the spotlight, and the governor would need a classy place to entertain visiting dignitaries, industrialists and investors. The cornerstone laying for "the mansion on the hill" drew a big crowd. Many local businesses had proclaimed a half-day holiday.

When work began on the grand new Capitol Campus in 1912, it was expected that the governor's "temporary" mansion would be torn down. The master plan envisioned the site being occupied by a twin to the neoclassical Insurance Building. But in the wake of never-ending debates over budget balancing and the priorities of government - some things never change - the mansion survived, which is not to say thrived.

The back of the Governor’s Mansion in the 1950s. Washington State Archives The back of the Governor's Mansion in the 1950s. Washington State Archives.

Gov. Ernest Lister, a Democrat elected in 1912 in a photo-finish reminiscent of the Gregoire-Rossi election 92 years later, was so fed up with the state of the accommodations and the lack of privacy that he threatened to move out in 1913, actually did it in 1915 and lived intermittently in a downtown hotel again in 1917. Lister said the plumbing was bad, the wiring worse and the heating system a joke. The paltry budget the Legislature provided for maintenance and operations only ensured further decay, he added.

Lister had been in a running battle with the Republicans practically from Day One of his administration, hurling "denunciations right and left" as he delivered veto messages. When a contentious pork-barrel appropriations bill finally passed the House, the speaker dispatched the chief clerk and a senior member of the Roads Committee to deliver it to the governor. They ended up at the mansion just before midnight on March 7, 1913. "After repeated thunderous knocking on the front door, the two were confronted by Mrs. Lister, a determined lady with quick reflexes. When she opened the door," the clerk tossed the bill inside, "but like a skilled soccer player, the first lady drop-kicked it back across the porch" and the messengers fled into the night. The governor was livid, according to Gordon Newell, the capital city's leading historian. In his veto message the next day, Lister declared: "I want to say this right now - that if any gang of ruffians, hoodlums or window-tommies can go to the residence of the governor because it is a public building, any time of the day or night to compel him to be seen, I am ready to leave that residence and move to a private house where I can at least during the nights have a few hours of privacy that every public citizen is entitled to."

Adding insult to injury, the state auditor wanted to dock the governor $1,500 for overspending the Mansion Fund. In what became one of Nancy Evans' favorite quotes, Gov. Lister pronounced the mansion "a monument to the high cost of low bids." And some other things hadn't changed much either. Dan Evans says he never ceased to be amazed at Nancy's skill in managing the mansion "with the inadequate pittance the Legislature would appropriate for maintenance and operations."

"Out of place"

The Governor's Mansion had been targeted for removal as early as 1928, when some legislators argued that it was out of place on the new Capitol campus and the perfect site for a legislative office building, in keeping with one comprehensive plan.

A few blocks south, there's another mansion of note that plays a role in this story. Built in 1923 by pioneer Olympia banker and financier Clarence J. Lord, the beautiful stucco and tile house is the work of Olympia architect Joseph Wohleb. He created one of the city's grandest homes in the Spanish Colonial style then popular in California. In 1939, C.J. Lord's widow and daughter donated the mansion to the state. Legislation was passed accepting the mansion generally, but not necessarily, for a museum, and there was even speculation that it might be used as a governors' residence. The following year, the Olympia chapter of the Daughters of the Pioneers staged a rally that drew members from around the state. They demanded that the Legislature designate the Lord Mansion as the State Capitol Museum, and the lawmakers and governor threw in the towel. (Today, the Lord Mansion is the State Capital Museum and Outreach Center, part of the Washington State Historical Society.)

But there's another twist: In the early 1960s, it was suggested that the State Capitol Museum swap mansions with the state, giving the governor and his family a newer but better built mansion that boasted both historical and architectural significance. The notion was that by converting the Governor's Mansion into a museum, its proximity to the Capitol would attract thousands more visitors and finance a thorough renovation - a win-win. But nothing came of that.

A timely visitor

Evans family album Evans family album.

During the Rosellini administration, a bill was introduced to finance the long-planned legislative office building. That idea also went nowhere. The earthquake of 1965 raised structural concerns, and in 1966, a citizens' advisory committee recommended construction of a new mansion. A bond issue approved the previous year even included some funding. But Gov. Evans said he believed remodeling would be a "much sounder" plan and suggested that history-conscious citizens, organizations and businesses might donate funds or materials.

Nancy Evans was in full agreement, but she had her hands full doing the grocery shopping, preparing menus, arranging flowers, helping set tables, trying to find and, better yet, keep decent cooks for low wages. Her only other full-time helper was a housekeeper. Later, she had a part-time secretarial assistant. "I was extremely busy, what with the three children and all the things I had to oversee," Nancy recalls. "We had breakfast meetings, lunch meetings, dinner meetings, banquets, receptions and teas. I was just scurrying about, trying to keep up and thinking, ‘What do I do tomorrow?!' "

That same year, 1966, Art McDonald, a popular KOMO-TV reporter, came to the door and asked to see the first lady. "In those days, you could come right to the front door of the Governor's Mansion," Nancy says. "I knew Art and he knew me, and we were chatting. Then he said, ‘Well, I just wanted you to know that a member of the Capitol Committee (Lands Commissioner Bert Cole) has suggested that the mansion be torn down to make way for an office building, because that was the original plan for the Capitol campus.' Art said the idea was that ‘a new modern, much more efficient mansion would be built somewhere else.' The Capitol Committee included the governor, the lieutenant governor and the commissioner of public lands. Without a moment's hesitation, I told Art, ‘Absolutely not. We are a young state, and this is part of our history, and we need to retain it.'

There was no State Patrol guard post when the Evans moved in. Note the "Caution, Children at Play" sign to the right. Washington State Archives There was no State Patrol guard post when the Evans moved in. Note the "Caution, Children at Play" sign to the right. Washington State Archives.

"Art thanked me, excused himself and went right back over to the Capitol, where Dan was having a press conference. He said, ‘Governor, I've just spoken to Mrs. Evans about the suggestion that the mansion be torn down. And she told me, ‘Absolutely not. It's worth preserving.' What do you think?' And Dan said, ‘That's what I think, too.' He's well trained!"

Dan, however, remembers waffling before getting his marching orders renewed. "Bert Cole was all in big favor of building a new mansion out on the point," he recalls, but Lieutenant Governor John Cherberg "wasn't sure quite what to do and neither was I. So it was kind of inconclusive that afternoon. After the (committee) meeting, we had a press conference and the press asked me my view. I said, ‘Well, I don't know. Maybe a new mansion is OK.' I was kind of not willing to say too much about it because I didn't really know what the heck we ought to do. And I got home that night and the paper said, ‘First Lady says, ‘Save the mansion.' I asked Nancy, ‘What the heck was all this about?' And she said, ‘Well, I talked to a member of the press. They asked me and I told them.' … So I told her, ‘Well, I guess that's our policy.' And then she was very good in saying why it needed to be saved, you know - ‘It may not be old now but it will never be old if we (tear it down).' "

The governor emerged the next day fully girded for battle. Moreover, the cost of securing a site, constructing and furnishing a new mansion was estimated at upwards of a shocking $2 million. With Nancy taking the lead, the couple supported a "Save the Mansion" campaign launched by the Daughters of the Pioneers - good ladies to have on your side. They attracted a strong core of supporters.

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Stop-gaps

The ballroom in the 1960s. Washington State Archives The ballroom in the 1960s. Washington State Archives.

After Dan won a second term, Nancy oversaw some repairs and renovations. But they were stop-gaps, literally and figuratively: The place was still cold in winter and stuffy in summer. Wind-whipped rain invariably led to leaks. One Christmas Day, as family and friends gathered to open presents, the governor was up on the rooftop trying to figure out why water was "just pouring into the ballroom." Further, the floorboards sagged; there was dry-rot in the porch and the wiring was a fright. The kitchen was too small for a family of six, let alone a place that entertained en masse.

"The mansion," Nancy told Sally Gene Mahoney of The Seattle Times on Inauguration Day 1969, "is an unhappy subject with me." The first lady lamented that when she called the caterer to make arrangements for a large pre-function, the woman "asked me if the kitchen had been fixed. When I told her it hadn't, she said, ‘Oh no - your kitchen is the worst one I've ever worked in!' "

Privacy - or the lack of it - which sore-vexed Gov. Lister, was still a problem. The mansion was both a semi-public venue and a private residence, although the private part was sometimes lost on tourists in the era before a fence was installed, together with a State Patrol guardhouse at the foot of the winding driveway. Wearing shorts, Nancy turned the corner one summer's day to encounter a couple who thought they were in a museum. "When's the tour?" they inquired. She couldn't even leave the door open on a muggy day.

Dan’s second inauguration in 1969. Mark had broken his leg while skiing. Looking on, at left, is Grandma "Gom" - Lilith Bell. Washington State Archives Dan’s second inauguration in 1969. Mark had broken his leg while skiing. Looking on, at left, is Grandma "Gom" - Lilith Bell. Washington State Archives.

Still, the governor, first lady and grandma coped with it all and added touches that made the mansion a home. Dan, who had fond memories of what it was like to be an adventuresome little boy, loved woodworking. And he was, after all, a former civil engineer, so he built a tree house with his sons. "It was a beautiful tree house," Nancy says wistfully, "and it also turned out to be a very expensive tree house. There was an old maple tree outside the mansion that had an enormous trunk with a lovely fork about 10 feet up - just a logical place to put a tree house. Dan and the boys were out there every weekend for weeks building this thing. It had a trapdoor and a ladder. Mark, who was about 4 at the time, fell through the open trapdoor and cracked his head. And of course these things always happen on the weekend when the doctors aren't available. So we dashed, as usual, to the emergency room. Mark actually had some ensuing difficulties … and we had to go to Children's Hospital a few times. Happily, the difficulties went away with time. The boys spent a lot of time in that tree house. There were no small children in the mansion for several years after we left, and eventually the tree house was removed, but I was sorry to see it go."

As for the other emergency room trips, Mark broke his leg while skiing when he was 6, while Bruce suffered serious lacerations when he ran through a glass door when he was 3. He was playing "circus" with his brothers while visiting his Uncle Bill. A few months earlier, busy little Bruce locked himself in the bathroom a few minutes before guests were set to arrive for a large dinner party at the mansion. Nancy says "Dan was out on the balcony checking windows to see if we could get in from there and I was frantically telling Bruce though the door, ‘Turn the little button the other way like a good boy.' Just as the first guests rang the bell, he turned it and let himself out."

"My appreciation for my mother grows by the day as I drag my own kids through their childhood," says Bruce Evans. "They're 9, 6 and 4, the same number and similar spacing to my brothers and me. And to think she was doing all that while being thrust into the role of first lady at a young age. It's really remarkable to me."

"Are you coming back?

Having the mansion right across the street from his office meant that the governor could spend more time with his family, but he was still gone a lot. Nancy wrote an article about what it was like to be first lady and First Mommy. She said Dan always tried to have breakfast with his family. "Almost every morning" when he was about to leave for work, Mark would ask, "Are you going to the Capitol, Daddy?" When Dan said "Yes," he always knew the next question would be "Are you coming back, Daddy?" Nancy wrote that "it sounds a little fatalistic but I'm sure it must seem to Mark that his Daddy does not come back for many days, as often he does not return until long after the boys are in bed and sometimes, of course, he actually does not return for several days. And then I think, ‘What a shame he can't spend more time with his father,' only to be caught short as I am preparing to go somewhere and Mark asks, ‘Are you coming home, Mommy?' Don't tell me I'm gone that much, too!"

Mark Evans, who became the middle child with baby Bruce's arrival, had a knack for asking tough questions. Dan Jr., being oldest, dutifully took notes and pasted stuff in his scrapbook. When he was 10, he wrote an article for Jack and Jill magazine about what it was like to be the son of a governor. He said his folks assigned him and his brothers "certain jobs that have to be done regularly," noting that he had earned a five-speed bike by cleaning the garage and tetherball court and raising the flag. He liked Little League, Cub Scouts and playing with his brothers. Bruce, easy-going, funny and friendly, added spice to all their lives, Danny said. For instance, when the Apollo astronauts were poised to land on the Moon in the summer of 1969, his kid brother, then 3, was helping tend the family garden in the mansion's back yard. Bruce suddenly extracted a carrot, counted down - "Five-four-three-two-one-zero-blast off!"— then tossed it as high as he could.

Bruce balks at shaking hands with the vice-president. UPI, Washington State Archives Bruce balks at shaking hands with the vice-president. UPI, Washington State Archives.

In 1971, however, when Spiro Agnew visited the mansion, Bruce was uncharacteristically petulant. He refused to dress up and come downstairs with his brothers to meet the vice president of the United States. Nancy insisted, and the 4-year-old finally appeared in short pants and knee socks. With Mom bending over his shoulder, he shook hands with Agnew with downcast eyes, tears streaming down his face. Motorized Nikons whirred and newspapers all over the country published the photo. They say kids can sense things about people. Maybe Bruce knew the honored guest was a nattering nabob of hypocrisy. Agnew resigned in disgrace three years after their encounter, pleading no contest to a charge of income tax evasion. Bruce is now clerk for the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee in Washington, D.C., and still gets teased about the photo.

As for teasing, Nancy recalls the time she was a substitute carrier on Mark's Olympian paper route and missed some porches. Mark, who was around 11, had a bad cold, or some such ailment, and mom sprang into action. Some customers had the effrontery to complain they'd been skipped or had soggy papers.

It seemed as if every day was a new adventure. One of Nancy's all-time favorite mansion moments came courtesy of a Cub Scout pack that arrived on Valentine's Day: "They walked in, presented me with a corsage, politely stood in line for their cookie, looked around, and, as they were leaving, each boy shook my hand like a gentleman and politely thanked me for a lovely time. But one little boy caught my heart when he pulled me down to him and said, ‘The house is pretty, but I like your red dress better.' That was the nicest Valentine present I could have had."

"Gom" a Godsend

First Lady Bety Ford has tea with Dan, Nancy, two of the boys, and Grandma Lilith Bell, right. Evans family album First Lady Bety Ford has tea with Dan, Nancy, two of the boys, and Grandma Lilith Bell, right. Evans family album.

The nicest present the whole family ever had was grandma. Widowed when Nancy's father died in 1962, Mrs. Bell was persuaded to move into the mansion in 1965 to help Nancy settle in to her new role. But "Gom" quickly made friends in the community and enjoyed joining in the entertaining at the mansion, including having tea with Pat Nixon and Betty Ford. She became an expert on its history and could recite the provenance of its furnishings. She delighted in giving tours. Her presence was a Godsend for her daughter and the whole family. The boys adored her, and so did her son-in-law, who carefully listened to her advice, solicited or otherwise.

"Gom was the third pillar and a huge part of our childhood," says Bruce Evans. With grandma's help, "there was no feeling of absence on the part of either parent, and that's pretty remarkable given the responsibilities they had." His grandmother definitely "wasn't to be trifled with," Bruce says. "The only occasion when I had my mouth washed out with soap, around age 10, was when I said something I shouldn't have in her presence, and I'm pretty sure I never used that word around her again. … Her word was the word of God." After he ran through the plate glass window at his uncle's house, his grandmother urged him to stop crying and try to stay calm, "and I tried very hard because Gom wanted me to."

Dan and Nancy were rarely surprised by Lilith Bell's chutzpah. In the early 1970s, she often attended legislative sessions and hearings. Like many senior citizens, she needed a hearing aid, but found there were problems with the process and the product. "I learned what a sad need there was for standards," she told reporters. "My beauty operator had to have a license, but hearing aid salesmen did not. I began taking on legislators at cocktail parties at the mansion. When I went to the hearings, a lobbyist stopped me and said, ‘Young lady, you're going to get arrested if you don't stop all that lobbying.' " Fat chance, Mrs. Bell said, but if it ever happened, she would "lobby against that, too. I believe in free speech!' "

"Dan didn't realize it at the time when he became governor," Nancy says, "but he quickly found out that there were several hundred commissions. There was the Mattress & Bedding Commission and there was a Hearing Aid Commission, so Dan said, ‘Ah, I'll put Gom on that commission.' I thought he was really brave to put her on there. (But) I would run into people who were on the commission, and they said, ‘Your mother is just a breath of fresh air. She comes in and tells it exactly like it is. And she tells the manufacturers what for.' "

Grandma’s 80th birthday at the Mansion brought out all the Bells. Evans family album Grandma's 80th birthday at the Mansion brought out all the Bells. Evans family album.

The governor gleefully signed into law his mother-in-law's bill to regulate hearing aid sales. "She really was a dynamo on the commission because she was all for the consumer," he recalls. "She knew all the foibles and the problems and the difficulties and the costs. And so, boy, she really turned that commission upside down because she was fighting to get the cost down and the quality up. … She saw a need and acted. I thought it was just great. … ‘Gom' was a wonderful help to us all and a steadying influence on the boys. She was always there. And a lot of times she was always there when we weren't. I don't know how we could have managed without her."

Nancy says, "Mother was a huge help and it really is what made it possible for me to not go crazy. And she was also very sensible. Any sensibility I have I learned from her. She was very practical, and when I wasn't around she tried to keep things orderly, as much as she could, with the kids. So she was a lifesaver." The touching thing, Nancy says proudly, is that when "Gom" got older, her three grandsons always took care of her.

Mrs. Bell's four children and a hundred friends and admirers gave her a surprise 80th birthday party at the mansion in 1972. She was going strong, eager as ever to try new things. "I cut off my long hair and went up in a blimp," she boasted.

That same year, her daughter acted on a plan they'd been mulling - a foundation to help preserve the Governor's Mansion "and stimulate interest" in the donation of antiques, artwork, table settings and historically relevant artifacts. One of the first lady's key goals was to establish and maintain some consistency in the style of the mansion's furnishings. Over the years, the Georgian Revival mansion had acquired a hodge-podge of drapes and furniture, much of it purchased out of pocket by former first ladies since the Legislature was perennially tight-fisted toward the mansion. In fact, when the Hays became the first tenants in 1908, Nancy says "the ladies of Olympia actually scurried around borrowing dishes and furniture" to help them set up housekeeping. Once unpacked, Governor Hay decided they would tap into the funds allocated by the Legislature for maintenance, operations and entertaining and issue a call for bids for enough furniture to furnish the place. He decreed that the bidding would be restricted to Washington state stores. The winner, with a bid of $15,000, was Frederick & Nelson, the pioneer Seattle department store. On the whole, given the tight budget, Lizzie Hay exhibited good taste. The stately grandfather clock on the staircase landing and the massive mahogany table, buffet and 18 chairs in the State Dining Room are among the survivors. However, "each family that moved in did things as money was allowed, and oftentimes not much money," Nancy says. "Every room was sort of different, except for the original furniture that was sort of late Victorian. There was no continuity to the décor."

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Founding a foundation

Dan and Nancy at a press conference around the time the Legislature finally appropriated money to remodel the mansion. Evans family album Dan and Nancy at a press conference around the time the Legislature finally appropriated money to remodel the mansion. Evans family album.

In 1972, architects were still sniffing that the mansion was "not architecturally wonderful and not historically ancient." Gov. Evans shot back that it was "a lot more ancient than a new one would be." Nancy redoubled her efforts to save it. "But I knew that even if we won, the state was not going to buy the furnishings appropriate for a place like this. That's when I came up with the idea of forming a foundation that would do it." She invited influential, history-minded citizens from around the state to join the cause. Forty-seven women and five men met with her at the mansion on May 30, 1972. The first lady already had two important players on board. Jean Jongeward, one of Seattle's most sought-after interior designers, agreed to donate her services, while, in a real coup, Laurene Gandy accepted Nancy's invitation to head the foundation. Mrs. Gandy was a much-admired civic activist, together with her late husband, who spearheaded Seattle's Century 21 world's fair. Its success made the Gandys the toast of the town. In 1964, you'll recall, Joe Gandy was an early GOP candidate for governor before withdrawing and lending his support to Dan Evans.

"I was so delighted when Laurene said yes," Nancy recalls, "because she was a wonderful, widely respected person and had great interest and knowledge of antiques. And my timing was impeccable because she had just lost her husband. The mansion was a new and interesting project for her to take on. I'm sure, however, that she had no idea of the amount of effort it was going to take, but she chaired the foundation for its first five formative years and did a wonderful job."

The foundation, anxious to avoid social minefields, quickly established a three-person Acceptance Committee. That simultaneously took the onus off Nancy Evans and protected the integrity of Jean Jongeward's master plan, which called for the acquisition of furnishings circa 1780-1830 to complement the design of the house. "Everywhere I went," Nancy recalls, "somebody would say, ‘Well, I have Aunt Sophie's tablecloth that would be just perfect.' " From Enumclaw to Ephrata, there were countless Aunt Sophies with a vase, a chest of drawers or an allegedly priceless rug.

The sitting room, circa 1970s. Washington State Archives The sitting room, circa 1970s. Washington State Archives.

"Laurene Gandy and I traveled around the state with what I called our dog and pony show, talking to people about the foundation," Nancy says. "We asked Marie Edwards, who had been the buyer for the Old World Shop at Frederick & Nelson, to help us. The shop sold antique furniture, lamps and dishes, and Marie was extremely knowledgeable. She chaired the Acceptance Committee, so it was very easy for me and anyone else involved with the foundation to be able to politely say, ‘I'm sorry. We have this committee that accepts things. I will refer this to them.' It was a very good decision to sort of depoliticize acquisitions and draw on the judgment of experts."

Jongeward and Edwards, with bargain-hunting savvy to match their exquisite taste, made the rounds of East Coast antique shops. They were pleasantly surprised when they found some choice American antiques. "They thought it was going to be primarily British or English pieces, and maybe a few French pieces," Nancy says. "So that was very exciting."

The foundation had received some donations, but it was far from well-heeled, especially in the early going, and often relied on timing and the kindness of enlightened strangers. "For the fireplace mantel, Jean and Marie had bought two little pieces with crystal drops. They arrived with one of the crystals missing, so we called a big antique store in New York." While mulling that request, the appraiser asked, " ‘By the way, are you a poor foundation?' We said, ‘Very, very poor.' And they said, ‘Well, a woman has just come in who's a customer of ours from Connecticut, and she has this demilune (crescent moon-shaped) server that she would like to donate. But she wants it to go to a poor foundation.' We qualified! It's the lovely mahogany and bird's-eye maple inlaid server that sits just off the entry hall." The piece, circa 1800, is attributed to John Seymour, considered the greatest post-Revolutionary War furniture designer and craftsman in Boston.

Working with the experts and mobilizing the committees was "a wonderful learning experience for me," Nancy says. "I learned so much."

Four more years

Danny dances with his mom at the 1973 Inaugural Ball. Evans family album Danny dances with his mom at the 1973 Inaugural Ball. Evans family album.

"The main reason I didn't want to leave here is that I didn't want to pack," Nancy quipped to reporters after Dan won his bare-knuckle 1972 rematch with Al Rosellini. At mid-October, the resurgent Democrat had a 13-point lead in the polls. Then, in one turning point in the race, he referred to his successor as "Danny Boy" during a debate. The faux pas struck many as both patronizing of the younger man and disrespectful to the governor's office. Nancy was in the audience that Saturday morning at North Seattle Community College and says she knew immediately that Rosellini had made "a big mistake."

The Mansion Foundation, meantime, was proving to be a big success. Fundraisers were taking place all over the state by all manner of groups and organizations, Republican and Democratic women's groups, Rotary and Zonta clubs, guilds and sororities. The Boeing Company and other firms would make donations in the years to come.

Nancy asked Dan to make a guest appearance for the foundation's second-annual meeting in 1973. He had good news: The Legislature had at last appropriated $600,000 for remodeling and structural renovation of the mansion. It was going to have a new lease on life.

Renovation work got under way in the spring of 1974, after the Evans family took up temporary residence in a Colonial Revival home known as the Egbert-Ingham House. Built in 1914, it was at Columbia and 14th on the site now occupied by the Visitors' Center at the north entrance to the Capitol Campus.

Unfortunately, to paraphrase the first lady's father, the contractors discovered Surprises Equinoxia - expensive ones. "When they opened it up, they found out the mansion's beams were not footed properly," Nancy says. "The gravity of the house was pressing down, keeping them in place. They also found a number of pint whiskey bottles, so it's easy to understand why the house was having problems."

Much of the interior had to be virtually gutted. The final tab was nearly $2 million, but the outcome left few dissenters. The tired old mansion was transformed into a house that had all the modern conveniences - whether for banquets or family breakfasts - without compromising its integrity as a public treasure. There was new wiring, new plumbing, a modern heating and air-conditioning system and a commercial-sized kitchen. Another sorely-needed public bathroom was added on the main floor, together with a private dining room and a family living room that Nancy loves. "It is a peaceful, quiet, lovely room" brightened by soft natural light from a big Palladian window that she suggested to the architects. She first admired the design in grand old homes and palaces she and Dan visited when they bummed around Europe as newlyweds. There's a smaller version in the house they built in Seattle when they finally retired from politics.

Renovation finally gets under way in the Mansion. Washington State Archives Renovation finally gets under way in the Mansion. Washington State Archives.

To complete the project, two new guest rooms were added on the second floor. In all, some 4,000 square feet of living space was added on the south side of the original structure, bringing the total to 18,000 square feet.

Meantime, the Mansion Foundation had been raising funds and tracking down furnishings and artwork for the public rooms. Through pluck and luck, Nancy and the other volunteers turned out to be persuasive fundraisers and world-class scroungers. "They had teas, lunches and dinners, train rides and picnics - all sorts of events all over the state," Nancy says. "And amazing pieces kept turning up. … When we moved back in September of 1974, it was truly exciting. The transformation was remarkable." That October was dubbed "Mansion Month," with fundraisers in 35 communities. More than $45,000 was raised. Through purchases and donations, the foundation had secured furnishings then valued at a total of $350,000. Today, the mansion collection easily tops $1 million, and the work goes on. Some of the greatest furniture-makers in American history, including Duncan Phyfe, Joseph Barry and Samuel McIntire, are featured. A magnificent portrait of George Washington by Rembrandt Peale, the American master of neoclassical portraiture, is a recent acquisition. "It's one of the finest in the country," Nancy notes, explaining that the foundation owns all of the furnishings in the mansion's original public rooms, as well as artwork and antiques in other public and private areas.

"What had once been a shabby home was now a really beautiful and even more historic building - a wonderful place where the governors and their families can enjoy life and entertain with a great feeling of satisfaction, proud to invite people from around the state and around the world," the former first lady says.

"What if?"

In 1976, Dan Evans likely had a good chance to become the state's first four-term governor, but he decided 12 years was long enough. Nancy was relieved. She too was ready for something new. Meantime, Gerald Ford, who had succeeded the disgraced Nixon, was looking for a running mate. With his squeaky-clean image and progressive record, Evans was on his short list. The Evans family was vacationing at a remote Montana cabin when the Secret Service arrived for a chat. That upped the ante, and Nancy's emotions were mixed: Pride, some anxiety and a dash of excitement, although she never allowed herself to get hung up on things beyond her control.

A few weeks later, Dan was asked to be a Ford delegate-hunter at the Kansas City Convention, where the president was facing a stiff challenge from Ronald Reagan. Dan's competitive juices kicked in, and the Evans brain trust - including legendary political operative C. Montgomery "Gummie" Johnson, Chief of Staff Bill Jacobs and Joel Pritchard, now a congressman - was doing its best to boost their guy onto the ticket. Ford's son Jack was also making it clear that Dan was dad's favorite.

Shelby Scates, the Seattle P-I's political reporter, called Jacobs to see if he could confirm a rumor that Secret Service phone links had been installed in the governor's suite, which would have been clear evidence that Dan was among the finalists. Jacobs said that was news to him. He cupped the phone and asked the governor and Bill Lathrop, his security man, if they knew anything. Both said nope, and Scates hung up disappointed. Dan was now intrigued. He dispatched Lathrop to check out the story. When the State Patrolman returned empty handed, Jacobs said, "I've got an idea. I'll be back!" He went to a pay phone, called the Holiday Inn where they were staying and in his best "Dragnet" imitation pretended to be a member of Ford's Secret Service detail. He asked the assistant manager to confirm that the phone links had been installed. "Yes, sir," the man said. "They're there." Then Jacobs said, "You're the one I was talking to when I was there?" "Yes sir." "Well, would you go over with me just where they're located?" "Well, sir, you told me that no matter who called on the phone, even you, not to discuss this." "Very good!" said Jacobs "But they are in place?" "Yes, sir, they are." Now, that's what we call great staff work.

In the end, Ford picked Kansas Senator Bob Dole. Dan told Nancy, "I know I'd be a better candidate than he is." It wasn't sour grapes. They were both wary of Dole's sarcastic tongue. The GOP ticket went on to lose narrowly to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. "That was the one time," Jacobs says, "when I felt that the VP choice made a difference - that Mondale ran a good campaign, Dole a bad one."

Would Dan have taken the spot if it had been offered? "Sure," says Nancy. "The vice-presidency … would have been a wonderful experience. Absolutely." And what about the presidency? If Nixon had picked Dan instead of Spiro Agnew in 1968, her husband could have ended up in the Oval Office. He certainly wouldn't have been involved in Watergate, and he might have won in his own right in 1976. Did she ever think about that - "What if"? Well, "Not much." And if she had become first lady, would she always try to remember she was really Nancy Bell from Spokane? "No other choice," says Nancy. "That's who I am. But it's a danger. It's easy to get absorbed in whatever life you're doing without remembering how you got there - why you are there.

"When Dan was in the Senate and we moved to D.C. … there were a lot of social things going on all the time. It's very formal there. Women dress up all the time. I had to buy new clothes. … And there's a lot of deference paid to elected officials back there, to senators particularly. You go to a lot of embassies and on and on and on and on. So you can quickly forget who you are and where you come from. … My oldest sister - my wise older sister Barbara - came back to visit one time and she could see all of this going on. She said, ‘Don't let yourself get so involved and forget who you are and why you're here.' And I said, ‘Well, I hope I don't.' She said, ‘Well, I can see that it would be easy for you to get that way.' So I tried very hard not to. … It's just so insidious that you're not even aware that it's happening to you. You just expect, ‘Of course I can do that. I can do whatever I want because my husband is a U.S. Senator.' So I was often surprised at some of the senators' wives who were there for a long time - some are still there - and what services they expected to have provided for them in the Capitol, for instance. And they were not the senators."

Packing up

In January of 1977, when it came time to leave the Governor's Mansion, Nancy and Dan sorted through their scrapbooks, packed with the flotsam of the past 12 years - name tags from trade missions, menus, birthday cards, telegrams and notes from famous people, including Nixon, who with typical duplicity assured Dan, "Your friendship means a great deal." And from not-so-famous people thanking Dan for his stewardship of the state. "Whenever I am tempted to dismiss all politicians as crooks," a Seattle woman wrote, "you restore my faith in the system." Page after page of snapshots of the family skiing, hiking, swimming; a series of Polaroids of Dan shaving off his much-debated beard in silly stages - Fu Manchu, Pecos Bill, Hitler. So many memories. And just when the place was fixed up, it was time to leave.

Dan and Nancy’s 1972 Christmas card. Grandma "Gom" thought it looked bad that the boy’s jeans were patched. But Nancy said it showed they were real boys. The Legacy Project collection Dan and Nancy’s 1972 Christmas card. Grandma "Gom" thought it looked bad that the boy’s jeans were patched. But Nancy said it showed they were real boys. The Legacy Project collection.

"It's like having a baby," Nancy says. "You nurture a child and you raise it, and then you send it out into the world with no idea of what they're going to do. So when we left the Governor's Mansion we had deeply mixed emotions. It had been our home for 12 happy years - Dan, the three boys, my mother and all those pets."

Dr. Ned Brockenbrough and the First Lady prepare to plant the "Nancy Evans Rhododendron." Evans family album Dr. Ned Brockenbrough and the First Lady prepare to plant the "Nancy Evans Rhododendron." Evans family album.

People kept asking her, "Won't you be glad to get back to Seattle?" "And I said, ‘Well, we're really happy where we are. We've really enjoyed Olympia. People think Olympia is terribly remote and provincial… But there's an ease of life here that I don't think you find in a larger city. There are things happening here and it's going to be very hard to leave Olympia." Nancy Evans' work in promoting cultural events during her years as first lady played a key role in making the capital a livelier city.

Often unmentioned is the fact Dan Evans prided himself on having a close-knit administration and he expected all of the key players - aides and departmental directors - to live in Olympia. "They became part of the community," says Jacobs, "and Nancy took an active role in the directors' wives club, which got together regularly at the mansion and did things under her leadership."

Since so many things bloom under Nancy's touch, friends and admirers gave her a unique going-away present: a new hybrid rhododendron, named in her honor. The rhodie, after all, is Washington's state flower. The Nancy Evans Rhododendron has orange-red buds that open to gorgeous amber yellow flowers in early May. It was created by Dr. Ned Brockenbrough, a Seattle surgeon who in the 1960s got hooked on the art and science of cross-breeding rhodies.

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/page10.aspx

What next?

Dan was entertaining job offers, but most would have forced them to leave the Northwest. "My general response," the governor said in the summer of 1976, "has been ‘Call me when you move your headquarters to Seattle.' " He added that a college or university presidency would be very appealing.

When Dixy Lee Ray moved into the mansion, Dan and Nancy treated the kids and Grandma to a vacation in Europe. When they returned it was to Olympia. Dan became the second president of The Evergreen State College, a job where he would need all of his political and diplomatic skills to ensure the survival of the controversial liberal arts school. Governor Ray and conservative lawmakers viewed Evergreen as an enclave of lefty professors and hippie kids with shaggy dogs.

The family moved into the president's home on Budd Inlet. It was nothing like a mansion, which was a relief in many ways, and it featured a spectacular view.

Nancy had a strong liberal arts background and real-world experience as an overseer at Whitman. She was in the trenches with her husband, lobbying to improve Evergreen's image and protect its funding. Dan Jr. was in high school, Mark in junior high and Bruce a fifth grader, so she was a busy mom, still active in cultural and philanthropic affairs - and disturbed by reports that Dixy Lee Ray's beloved poodle, Jacques, was peeing all over the mansion.

Dan burnished his image with the students and faculty when he took up famed mountain climber Willi Unsoeld's challenge to rappel down the clock tower on campus. They were happy years for Dan and Nancy, and they shored up Evergreen's reputation.

The Evans family on the deck at the home of the president of The Evergreen State College. Evans family album The Evans family on the deck at the home of the president of The Evergreen State College. Evans family album.

Soon, the oldest Evans boys had driver's licenses, which meant Nancy wasn't logging as many miles as taxi driver. She gave them the room to make mistakes, but kept an eye on everything. Mark says his parents "were admirably restrained," but had different styles. "Mom was the disciplinarian in some ways but never in a heavy handed fashion," he says, offering this cautionary true tale: "When I was in High School, some friends and I borrowed my parents' Volvo station wagon to go to a basketball game. On the way home, the normal road we would have turned onto was blocked off due to flooding. One of my friends suggested it would be great to drive through the water and throw up a huge spray. Being the responsible middle child, I of course demurred - for 20 seconds. I hit the gas, and boy did we ever throw a huge spray from either side of the car. Then a big spray came over the hood and the car stopped." After a moment of stunned silence, one of his friends opened a door. Water surged in, and the friend belatedly said, "Don't open the doors!" Mark rolled down a window, jumped out and landed in waist deep water. The boys finally managed to push the car back onto dry pavement.

"When I got home later that evening after wringing out the car at a friend's house, I heard my father's voice asking me to come into their room. They were both in bed. Dad looked like he had been doing the crossword with the TV on in the background, while Mom had fallen asleep. Dad lectured me briefly on staying out too late, then asked me to turn off the TV. I had been standing in the shadows because my pants were wet. Now I had to cross the room and hope he wouldn't notice. I strode over to the TV, turned it off and started to leave the room, thinking to myself, ‘Thank goodness, he didn't notice anything.' But as I was leaving the room, Mom, whose eyes had never opened - or so I thought - said, ‘Why are your pants wet?' That story to me captures my Mom. Even when you don't think she's looking, she's got her eyes out for her boys."

Scoop's successor

In 1983, U.S. Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Dan Jr. was about to graduate from Whitman, while his brothers were headed East - Mark to Williams College and Bruce to Yale. In fact, Dan and Nancy had just dropped off Bruce at SeaTac. It was a gorgeous late August afternoon. "The Evergreen president's house had a deck out in back overlooking the bay and Mt. Rainier. We were having a drink, sitting out there just talking," Nancy recalls. "And I remember I said, ‘You know, now that the boys are gone … are we still going to like each other?' And Dan said, ‘Well, of course.' And I said, ‘I don't know, it just seems strange. What are we going to do?' It was this deep discussion. … Finally I said, ‘Well, I've got to go fix dinner.' And Dan says, ‘Why?' And I laughed and said, ‘Well, I don't know!' So I think I sat back down and we had another drink. We went to bed and at about 11 or midnight, Dan's brother Roger called. He said, ‘Have you heard the news?' Scoop Jackson had died. We had not heard the news, and the next morning, right after these two boys had gone off to school and we had talked about ‘What do we do now?' the phone started ringing. The timing of everything was incredible."

Over the years, Dan had weighed running for the Senate. "We thought Maggie and Scoop were going to be there forever so why think about it?" Nancy recalls. Besides, "he just liked being governor" and being president of the college had turned out to be interesting as well. "He just didn't think that was something he wanted to do."

Over the next several days, they mulled. Dan talked with Senator Slade Gorton, his old comrade. Gorton encouraged him to seek the appointment. Secretary of State Ralph Munro, a trusted friend and former aide, prodded him to call Governor John Spellman, who would get to fill the vacancy. Dan decided "the polite thing to do" would be to talk it over with Spellman, but he was a conflicted candidate. Just before he left for the meeting with the governor, Nancy recalls, "he was walking down the hall shaking his head."

"I said, ‘I'm going to tell the governor ‘No.' I just don't want to do this,' " Dan recalls. "And she said, ‘Look, you do what you want to do, and I'll be there. It'll be great. Whatever you do is fine.' "

On the ride from Cooper Point to the Governor's Mansion, he changed his mind. All over the radio was the news of a Korean airliner being shot down when it strayed into prohibited Soviet Union airspace. All 269 people aboard perished. It was perhaps the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis. "Good God," Dan said to himself, "how can you not want to really get involved in resolving (things like that)? With this many problems and the challenges that we're facing you can't just back away from that." He and the governor had breakfast in the new private dining room the Spellmans were enjoying, thanks to Nancy. "I told the governor, ‘You do whatever you want and I'll be very happy. But, if you think that I'm the right appointment, I'd be proud to serve.' " Spellman said he was proud to appoint Daniel J. Evans to the United States Senate.

"It was a very hard time," Nancy says. "One of the hardest times in our lives …because then he had to run for election in two months" (if he wanted to serve out the last five years of Jackson's Senate term.)

Nancy and the boys attended the swearing in, then Nancy returned alone. "Dan had to fly back there every week to learn how to be a senator. Fly home on the weekends, organize and put together a campaign, raise money. … campaign out here and then go back and do his work back there."

Pressed into service was their trusted friend Bill Jacobs, who was in D.C. on a special assignment with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Dan defeated Seattle Congressman Mike Lowry, who went on to become governor and a partner with Evans in a coalition to protect forests and wildlife. While some might conclude they're the strangest of political bedfellows - the voluble liberal Democrat and the cerebral Republican engineer— their friendship is another example of Evans' bridge-building style. It's Nancy's style, too, and she says of Lowry "He's a love - he really is."

A frustrating job

U.S. Senator Dan Evans with his family at the National Capitol in the 1980s. Evans family album U.S. Senator Dan Evans with his family at the National Capitol in the 1980s. Evans family album.

Slade Gorton, Dan's old comrade from their days in the state Legislature, loved the Senate, but Evans was frustrated from the beginning. Dan's staff was "wonderful," Nancy says, thanks in large part to Jacobs' skill as a recruiter and organizer. But seniority - or the lack of same - permeated practically everything in the Senate.

Things were better when Nancy finally found them a tiny but charming old house not far from the Hill. Dan also landed a spot on the Foreign Relations Committee, so they met dozens of visiting dignitaries, and took a number of trips together. Jordan is the most memorable. Before King Hussein arrived for a luncheon, Nancy demonstrated her diplomatic skills and big sister wisdom. Dan's assistant, a young woman named Chris Dawson, was told she had to remain with the women while the men discussed serious issues. "She was a bright, independent, single lady and furious," Nancy recalls. "She almost turned red right there. … I could see that Chris was about ready to say something, so I went over, and I think I whispered, ‘Just come quietly with me.' We went to this tiny room off the entry and sat there with these Jordanian ladies. They were very nice, but we had nothing in common because all they wanted to talk about was their trips to London and Paris, and shopping. Chris was sitting there seething. And I was sitting there trying to look interested."

Dan was impressed by the way Nancy defused the situation: "Boy, she caught it so early that I don't think anybody else even ever knew. … Nancy just nipped that one right in the bud. We had a more official meeting afterwards, which Chris was part of. So it all worked out. … And then of course during the lunch I could hardly get a word in edgewise with the king because he was talking with Nancy the whole time."

Two Nancys: First Lady Nancy Reagan poses with Nancy Evans at a Congressional wives luncheon in 1986. Nancy Evans felt silly wearing her Red Cross volunteer's apron, while the First Lady was dressed to the nines. Evans family album Two Nancys: First Lady Nancy Reagan poses with Nancy Evans at a Congressional wives luncheon in 1986. Nancy Evans felt silly wearing her Red Cross volunteer's apron, while the First Lady was dressed to the nines. Evans family album.

With her deft touch and lively sense of humor, Jacobs says Nancy played a key role in keeping Dan's Senate staff revved up. They put in some long hours, but the boss's wife was a familiar face, whether for work or play. "One of the things that brought us together," the chief of staff says, "was that we played together, too, and Nancy played with us." When there was a pizza party at someone's apartment, she'd just as soon be there as at some swanky reception on the Hill.

By 1987, however, Dan had had enough of the other Washington. They were coming home. "I've lived through five years of bickering and protracted paralysis. Five years is enough," he said. "I just can't face another six years of frustrating gridlock."

Senator Strom Thurmond, the living fossil from South Carolina, once asked Nancy, "Well, Mrs. Evans, does Dan prefer being a governor or does he prefer being a senator?" Nancy replied that Dan preferred being a governor "because of the ability to set the agenda and organize things a bit more the way you would like to have them." Thurmond patted her on the behind and said, "Yeah, but the Senate is where the power is!" True enough, if you'd been around since the Eisenhower administration. Jacobs offers this perspective: "I think it's important for people to understand that Dan and Nancy valued that experience in Washington, D.C., and they both worked hard at it. All governors who wind up in the U.S. Senate are frustrated at first because they don't have the executive power they did. But the main reason he decided to not stay in the Senate is that if he ran for re-election and got elected, in essence that would be where he was spending the rest of his life."

Exactly, says Nancy. Dan did hate the inertia in the Senate, "but it wasn't just that." They were both getting older. They enjoyed the museums, monuments and battlefields, met many fascinating people, but it never felt like home. They yearned for the trees, the mountains, Puget Sound on a spring day with wind in the sails.

But first they spent a stimulating semester at Harvard, where Dan was a visiting fellow in the Kennedy Institute of Government. Nancy audited classes to her heart's content, including one devoted to Beethoven, another on art history and yet another on Southern female authors. "Dan would go off to his classes, and I would put on my boots, my wool coat, my scarf, my gloves and my hat. I'd pick up my books and off I would trudge - a college student all over again. It was fun!"

"Retired"?

Settling in back home, they built a dream house not far from the park bench where Dan proposed. You would be hard pressed to find two busier, ostensibly retired people. She became a trustee at Whitman, he a regent at the UW. She found herself knee deep all over again in the Seattle Symphony Board, plus KCTS and the Friends of Cancer Lifeline. She was surprised and deeply honored when the Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits & Philanthropy was established in 2004 as an adjunct to the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the UW. One of the lessons of her Depression-era childhood was that "even if you didn't have much money, you could still donate your time and in any case you had an obligation to care." The Northwest Parkinson's Foundation at Evergreen Hospital at Kirkland is also close to their hearts because family members and friends have fought the incurable neurological disease.

As for cancer, it's one thing to battle it yourself, Nancy says, and quite another to see a precious grandchild desperately ill. Eloise Evans - the daughter of Dan Jr. and his wife Celia - began her harrowing bout with rhabdomyosarcoma two months before her fourth birthday. It is a cautionary tale with a happy ending. Eloise is 14 now and a competitive swimmer, her grandmother notes with pride, thanks to Seattle's Children's Hospital and a world-class oncologist named Doug Hawkins. At first, doctors thought it might be an ear infection, then tonsillitis. Nancy's daughter-in-law instinctively knew it was something more serious, so she scooped up her child and took her to the ER at Children's. "They found a mass the size of a tennis ball under her brain," Nancy recalls, still shaking her head at the close call. It was inoperable. Thirteen rounds of chemo and six weeks of radiation saved Eloise's life. Grandma and Grandpa were there every inch of the way, together with a platoon of Dan and Celia's friends, who cooked and delivered meals and offered unwavering support. Eloise's two siblings frequently lived with Dan and Nancy while their parents took turns sleeping in her hospital room. Sometimes Eloise asked her grandpa to spend the night with her at the hospital - "a rare honor" and privilege, Nancy says.

"The tumor was so fast growing. If it had slid for even a few weeks, who knows what would have happened?" Nancy says, "So I give full credit to Celia for not waiting. The thing I so often tell young mothers is, ‘Listen to your children. Don't necessarily listen to the doctors because you know your child better than anybody. Follow through on your instincts.'"

The Foundation

Nancy has, of course, kept up with the Governor's Mansion Foundation. Even though the foundation had been carefully established as the legal guardian of the mansion's public rooms and furnishings, Nancy says she once worried that problems might crop up in the years to come - personality clashes between the board and first families or dust-ups with the Legislature over appropriations for maintenance. She wondered whether her successors would chafe at the restrictions and want to change things to suit their own individual styles. Over the years, in fact, she says she has made pro forma apologies to most of her successors, including Mike Gregoire, the state's first "first gentleman," for tying their hands. "When we set up the foundation, we stipulated that the governor's wife cannot do any of the decorating in the public rooms, so that the master plan would be kept intact. But they've all been very kind and said, ‘We were all very happy not to have that responsibility.' It's been quite wonderful, the way they've all gotten along together."

That succeeding first families, the foundation and the state have happily coexisted as caretakers of a public trust is testimony to Nancy Evans' deft ability to bring people together to achieve good things - and have fun doing it. Like a proud parent, she is endlessly delighted with the work of the foundation. "They've continued to do a marvelous job."

Shelley Carr, the president of the foundation, says Nancy "is one very gracious, genuine, amazing woman. She has the ability to make one feel so at ease - like a loving aunt. I remember calling her a few months ago with a last-minute request for photos for a book on the families who had lived in the Governor's Mansion. She was packing to leave town for a few months, but she interrupted what she was doing, went to Dan's office, selected a number of delightful photos and made sure they were promptly mailed to me. That's going way beyond the call.

"Not only do we have Nancy to thank for saving the Governor's Mansion from demolition, the idea of setting up a foundation for the maintenance of the public rooms was ingenious. Here she was a young mother with a zillion things to attend to, and she researches how best to set up the foundation for the preservation of this oldest building on the capital campus. We are so lucky she was our First Lady. And, she's still a great supporter," Carr says.

Dan Evans Jr. says the work his mother did to preserve "such an important icon for all Washingtonians was a remarkable feat. … She worked tirelessly to rebuild and redecorate, and the result is stunning. I am sure there are many visitors to the mansion today who just assume that it always looked so beautiful."

https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/stories/nancy-evans/page11.aspx

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Best friends

Nancy in 2009 with a memento from the 1972 campaign when Al Rosellini called her husband "Danny Boy." John C. Hughes for The Legacy Project Nancy in 2009 with a memento from the 1972 campaign when Al Rosellini called her husband "Danny Boy." John C. Hughes for The Legacy Project.

Bill Jacobs, who met Nancy during Dan's first campaign for governor, says he realized early on that although she was only 31, she was a remarkable blend of charm and intelligence. They became good friends, especially when they ended up a long way from home in D.C. When Dan was busy with a hearing or other Senate duties, they'd go to dinner or the movies, and "sometimes I would escort her to an important function. I was always flattered to do that. I would say to Dan, ‘Well we've spent most of the weekend together,' and he would go ‘Really?' (almost yawning) as if to say, ‘I'm not worried.' Which, kidding aside, is another insight into the trust these people had, one with the other.

"I can't imagine how difficult it must be for an elected official not to have the support and camaraderie and the wisdom of their spouse. But Dan was especially blessed. Jim Dolliver used to say that Dan's best friend - besides being his wife - was Nancy. They had great rapport and great understanding, but they would argue a lot, too. So it wasn't all harmony. That's just the way they related sometimes. They could tell one another the truth about how they felt," the former chief of staff adds.

"I also remember Jim saying early on that a governor has three responsibilities: You're the chief executive of the state; you're the First Family and you're the leader of your party. Nancy played a significant role in all three of those responsibilities. She traveled with him; they talked together; she gave advice - good advice," political and otherwise. Jacobs adds that Nancy also deserves credit for helping Dan energize the progressive wing of the Republican Party in Washington State. "They kept it a moderate party," he says. "It's no wonder the conservatives were angry with them because (they were so effective). Having said that, they're both much more loyal Republicans than the Republican Party gives them credit for. … As a team, I have never seen anything in political life like the two of them."

He says it has occurred to him lately that Nancy Evans and Hillary Clinton have several things in common, notably that they are both exceptionally smart and never hesitated to offer advice to their spouses. (Dan Evans, one could argue, was a way better listener than Bill Clinton.) Jacobs believes that "Nancy could have had her own political career, had she chosen to, because she had the ability and the popularity."

Most of all, Evans' former chief of staff adds, "They both took that role of being ‘first citizen' very seriously. They knew people were looking to them - that people judged them… And they led exemplary lives as role models. Both of them are comfortable in their own skin. They know who they are - always have - and that says a lot about what kind of people they are."

Counting blessings

The Evans family, including sons, daughters-in-law and grandkids, gather at Sun Valley to celebrate Dan’s 80th birthday in 2005. Evans family album The Evans family, including sons, daughters-in-law and grandkids, gather at Sun Valley to celebrate Dan’s 80th birthday in 2005. Evans family album.

In a 1974 interview, the Associated Press asked Nancy to assess her "public image." After a long pause, she replied, "I'm not sure I have one. I'm probably seen as a shadow of my husband, I'm sorry to say. I don't like to be. I looked at a press release the other day that said, ‘Nancy Evans, wife of Gov. Dan Evans,' and thought, ‘Gee, why did they have to say ‘wife of Gov. Dan Evans'? all the while knowing why they have to."

That doesn't happen much any more.

The Evans boys are happily married, have good jobs and three children apiece, which adds up to nine grandchildren to dote on - although most of them are farther away than they'd like. Dan keeps working on his autobiography, but Nancy and their friends think it's taking way too long. He admits that every time he uncovers an interesting old news story or editorial about the Evans era, he gets so fascinated that he forgets he's supposed to be writing. As an author, he really is "Old Gluefoot."

They count their blessings. They're enjoying good health and lots of stimulating activities. They're still very much in love. To observe their 50th anniversary, they recreated their trip to Carmel - without the big-finned Plymouth, but with a corkscrew, to be sure. Looking back at an eventful life, Nancy says she dearly loved her father, but it was mother who knew best when she said, "You can do whatever you want to do; you just have to be ready to do it, and say yes."

John C. Hughes, The Legacy Project, 2009

Key sources

HistoryLink.org, the indispensable encyclopedia of Northwest history, features an excellent 2004 essay on Dan and Nancy Evans by Cassandra Tate.

The Washington Governor's Mansion Foundation Web site offers a comprehensive history of the mansion and the foundation, as well as a photo gallery, tour information, newsletters and information on how to make a donation.

The 2009 Whitman College Alumni award

Miriam L. Bausch of Olympia, a tireless member of the Mansion Foundation, conducted an important interview with Nancy Evans on July 15, 2008, in connection with the mansion's centennial, with transcription by Teresa Bergen.

For a short biography of Nancy Evans and many other first ladies of the State of Washington, plus an historical overview of the mansion, read "First Families" by Mary Lou Hanify. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 1988, ISBN 0840345968

For an entertaining, irreverent history of Washington's capital city and 120 years of state politics, see "Rogues, Buffoons & Statesmen" by Gordon Newell, Superior Publishing Co., Seattle, 1975, ISBN 0-87564-106-7

For more on the colorful career of Speaker John L. O'Brien, who was ousted by the Evans forces in 1963, see Daniel Jack Chasan's "Speaker of the House," University of Washington Press, 1990, ISBN 0-295-96848-6.

For more on the history of the mansion, see "The Governor's Mansion Centennial," by Gerry L. Alexander, chief justice of the Washington Supreme Court, in the winter 2008-09 issue of Columbia, the magazine of Northwest history.

The interior designer who helped Nancy transform the mansion died in 2000 at the age of 83. The Seattle Times said, "Jean Jongeward, the elegant designer whom clients and colleagues called ‘Seattle's queen of design,' built a national reputation for originality, patronage of local artists and decades of influence in Northwest homes and businesses. Largely self-taught, with a background in accessorizing model rooms for the old Frederick & Nelson store, she worked with top regional architects and helped establish the Northwest style."

"Voices of the Mansion," which includes oral histories on the history of the Governor's Mansion, was published by the Governor's Mansion Foundation, with a grant from the Women's History Consortium, $10, available at the mansion on tour days.

"A Public Mansion, A Private Home," partially funded by the Colonial Dames of Washington, $10, also available at the mansion on tour days.