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.

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…"

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."

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.

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."

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."

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.