Nancy Bell Evans: 1933–2024

Lots of us have seen, and lam­pooned, those pic­tures of Nan­cy Rea­gan on the dais, start­ing ador­ing­ly at the Gip­per as he deliv­ered famil­iar material.

Nan­cy Bell Evans, Wash­ing­ton’s for­mer First Lady, was of a dif­fer­ent stripe. She and hus­band Dan, who also served a stint in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, were a team for two-thirds of a cen­tu­ry until her week­end death at age ninety.

“She always sat in the front row when he gave speech­es in recent years,” said Bar­bara Sten­son Spaeth, retired Seat­tle jour­nal­ist, “And they must have had a sig­nal — because she looked up at him and he watched her and when she let him know, he shut up, or per­haps more del­i­cate­ly, decid­ed to ‘wind it up’. They were total­ly con­nect­ed — one smart woman and he knew it.”

In his mem­oirs, pub­lished last year, the ex-Gov­er­nor dis­cussed Washington’s deci­sion in 1970 to legal­ize abor­tion. Nan­cy Evans took the lead as orga­niz­er of a south Puget Sound chap­ter of Planned Par­ent­hood. Rea­son­able Repub­li­cans were in the lead, in stark con­trast to the party’s stance today.

In its obit­u­ary, The Seat­tle Times list­ed Nan­cy Evans’ cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tions, from restor­ing our gov­er­nor’s man­sion to cham­pi­oning the for­ev­er belea­guered State Capi­tol Muse­um, and the UW’s estab­lish­ment of a Nan­cy Bell Evans Cen­ter for Non­prof­its and Phil­an­thropy. She was, said her sons, a “force of nature” who “pro­pelled caus­es for­ward’ and offered “sage advice.”

She was also one tough cook­ie with no tol­er­ance of pretense.

I recall a mar­velous scene when “The Trea­sure Hous­es of Britain” exhib­it opened at the Nation­al Gallery of Art in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. It was a social event for the ages, with Princess Diana upstag­ing Prince Charles and danc­ing at the White House with John Travolta.

My part­ner Mick­ie was vis­it­ing and we were tour­ing old­er precincts of the Nation­al Gallery. We ran into Ore­gon Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jim Weaver, who pressed in my hand an invite to an exclu­sive show­ing of Trea­sure Hous­es and recep­tion for mem­bers of Congress.

We toured the exhib­it and received quizzi­cal looks from mem­bers of Washington’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion. Over sher­ry at the recep­tion, two House wives start­ed to press us: How did we get in? They were insistent.

Mick­ie pre­tend­ed to be oblivious.

I locked eyes with Nan­cy Evans, who was high­ly amused at the sta­tus seek­ers. She and Sen­a­tor Dan Evans engaged us in con­ver­sa­tion as if we were nat­ur­al invi­tees. They end­ed on a note of “Great to see you here.”

The Evans­es nev­er real­ly took to D.C.

Gov­er­nors make deci­sions. Sen­a­tors engage in cease­less negotiations.

At Nancy’s urg­ing, Dan Evans took to car­pen­try so as to have the feel­ing that he had actu­al­ly accom­plished some­thing at the end of a frus­trat­ing day,

The sen­a­tor did write a mil­lion acre Wash­ing­ton Wilder­ness bill. Nan­cy Evans stood aloof from the guy-cul­ture of an out­doors­man hus­band, three sons and her broth­er Bill Bell. She was, how­ev­er, always present to cri­tique the Big Guy, now nine­ty-eight and vis­i­bly aging of late.

Nan­cy Evans will be remem­bered for an achiev­ing life well lived. She went far beyond ren­o­vat­ing a man­sion, embrac­ing a woman’s right to make her own repro­duc­tive health deci­sions, and pur­su­ing an array of inter­ests and good works.