The Stories

"For as many years as I have been alive, the family has traveled to Squam Lake for a summer vacation. None of us have missed a summer at Squam and some of us, actually just me, have been fortunate enough to spend the entire summer on the lake.

While those who occasionally visit see the scenery and the house as the reason to return, the family comes back each summer (like swallows to Capistrano) to hear little Jack (technically now big Jack) recite and embellish his repertoire of stories. Please understand there are many yarns and each year a new tale or two is added. Every summer the family gathers to reminisce and learn a bit more about their father, mother and ancestors through the dinnertime storytelling ritual led by big Jack.

Here are few of the favorites:"
John 2008

Pearl Diving

"Most years at camp, a boat will be anchored off the far corner of the dock. Every summer when the sea otter (and now the Lilly Pad), are put in the water, the anchor has to be pulled from the bottom of the lake to the surface, so it can be attached to the boat. However, most of the time the anchor gets stuck on something at the bottom of the lake, and the only way to fix this problem is to dive down and free it.

There is only one person in the Evans family who is tough enough for the job, and that is Bapa. Only he can hold his breath long enough to swim down to the bottom of the lake and free the line.

We all know that Bapa is a phenomenal swimmer, by far the best in the family, but according to him this is not why he can hold his breath this long. Every year at some point before he dives for the anchor, Bapa will tell several members of the family that the reason he can hold his breath for this long, is because at some point in his life he was a pearldiver! "
Carrie 2008






First Water Skier on Squam Lake

"Jack has achieved many goals in 80 years. Career, community service and family are pursuits at which he has excelled. If you ask him what achievements he is most proud of you would expect to hear accomplishments in the aforementioned areas of his life. However, there would be a few surprises.

Especially if the venue in which he was asked this question was after dinner on the porch of Waialua. Jack has proudly mentioned on too many occasions (which some how has enhanced the humor of the claim) that he was the first person to water ski on Squam Lake.

As the story usually goes, Jack returned from a post college graduation trip to Europe with the ability to water ski. The year would have had to been 1950. Apparently while visiting the Italian Riviera, Jack learned to water ski, and as he tells it, the Italians were the inventors of water skiing.


No has ever asked Jack where he acquired water skis and a tow rope on a lake where no one had ever water skied. We can’t stop laughing long enough to ask the question."
John 2008



Angel Food Cake at Lawrenceville School


"From its early days until the late 1970’s, Lawrenceville School would test the mettle of its incoming all male first and second form students in an assortment of ways. One of the most challenging trials was Lower School. Lower, as residents would refer to it, was an imposing brick edifice. Two stories split in the middle by a dining hall on the first floor and a study hall on the second floor. On each side were two “houses”, one house each on the first and second floors. These so called houses were in reality partitioned dormitories. Each student had his own “cube”. Cubes were constructed of two seven foot high plywood walls. There were no doors on the cubes. If your family had the foresight, they would send you to school with a curtain for the front of the cube. In each cube was a cot, a closet and a dresser. There was no room for anything else. Thirty students resided in each of the houses. Viewed from the exterior, a casual observer might think….. Sing Sing or Pilgrim State.

Living in Lower took some adjustment. Like boot camp recruits, students were quickly immersed in a strict regimen of classes, sports, study hall and little casual time. This was not a warm secure home, and there were few reminders of the comforts of home.

There were no secrets or laundry facilities in Lower. Each week students would bundle up their dirty clothes in a laundry box and send them home. And sometime during the week the laundry boxes would arrive back at school with washed and folded clothes inside. While it is not clear if other students would get anything else back in their boxes, Jack did, and it was food. Perhaps it was because Mimi was the Rachael Ray of the time or because Jack had a limited palate as a second former, but the food in the laundry box was usually if not always an angel food cake."

As his fellow housemates got to know Jack, they observed the weekly arrival of the angel food cake in the laundry box and watched Jack with envy as he consumed his angel food cake. Their envy was enhanced by the quality of the dining hall food. It is not clear from the many recitations of this anecdote how long it took his housemates to act. As a former resident of Lower, I have always assumed it was sometime before Thanksgiving.

The weekly cake had become like fresh kill on the savanna. The hyenas were not going to be denied. Banding together, they waited for the right opportunity to pounce. Their chance was delivered when Jack was not there to claim his laundry box one afternoon. Jack was probably at swimming practice or some other extracurricular activity. His housemates grabbed the box and the cake and had a feast. A feast in Lower was defined as any time normal non-school prepared food was consumed.

Each rendition of this story has consistently concluded with a mention that his housemates were upstanding individuals as they left one sliver of cake and a thank you note for Jack in his laundry box."
John 2008




Train Ride to Squam

"Early one morning Jack was awoken with a shake from the family’s governess. He hopped excitedly out of bed for he knew that the next day he would arrive at one of his favorite places in the world, a place where every thing was always the same and he could relax and be himself. On the drive into Philadelphia Jack and his brother Bill took a nap to build up their energy for the long day to come.

When they got to the train station the driver pulled up along the side of the road and unloaded the car while the two boys and the governess strolled inside to receive their tickets, and board the train to Meredith, New Hampshire. They climbed into the Pullman parlor car and took their seats. The ride took a long time and Jack sat up all day looking out the window and picturing the place he would be tomorrow. That night they converted their seats into beds and slept through the night. The next day the boys awoke and prepared to get off the train with exceptionally large grins on their faces.

When they arrived at Meredith they stepped off the train and met their chauffeur, Joe Flick. They drove out of the train station through Center Harbor and along Bean Road, until they saw a little white sign displaying the last name of Evans in bold black strokes at the end of a twisted bumpy old dirt road.

As they traveled down this road Jack was dying to jump out of his seat, but he sat quietly and just observed the beautiful sparkling water just down the hill. As the car pulled around the road’s circle Camp Waialua bustling with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends came into view. When the car had come to its complete stop Jack burst through the door and ran straight to the old wooden dock that stood out into the channel and took a deep relaxing breath."
Polly's 2004 Biography of Bapa



Bats in the Attic

"Necessity is the mother of invention, and on a rainy Squam Lake day, invention is always hard at work. There are plenty of books to read, board games to play and puzzles to assemble, however these activities can satisfy young men only so long.

Around early afternoon, the need to exercise would engage, and Jack, his cousins, brother and friends would invent indoor athletic contests. Fortunately Waialua is a large house. You have to know the house well and have a fertile imagination to identify potential events. Of course, Jack and the rest of the gang knew every nook and cranny in Waialua and all of its interesting idiosyncrasies shall we say.

So one rainy afternoon the gang looking for some fun created a new form of tennis. This new variant was not played on a tennis court. Actually the game really had little similarity to traditional tennis other than the fact tennis rackets were involved. You didn’t need a tennis ball.

One of Waialua’s less charming features (of which there are few) are bats. In fact there is a whole volume of stories about the bats in the attic. These stories consist principally of how many ways the Evans family has tried to evict the bats. My personal favorite is how my great grandfather had exterminators tent the entire house and blow some chemical noxious to bats (and humans) into the entire house, and how following the successful eradication, my great grandmother upon returning to the house decided the attic was stuffy and opened the attic windows. You can figure out how that story ends.

So to Jack and the gang, the bats in the attic were vermin and therefore were fair prey or should I say fair play.


Rain coats were donned, tennis rackets were located and a bamboo fishing pole or two were grabbed. The gang climbed the three flights of stairs to the third floor and opened a door infamously marked with a sign there to this day that reads – “BAT ROOM KEEP DOOR CLOSED”. It is not clear who the author of this handwritten sign was, but I have always wondered if it was my great grandmother.

The gang entered the BAT ROOM and opened a window at the far end of the room. A “poler” and a “whacker” were assigned. Others would watch until the poler and whacker positions were rotated. Everyone had to have a crack at the game. The poler would poke the bamboo fishing pole up into the rafters along the underside of the exposed roof shingles. Probably within a few seconds a brown blur would race toward the open window in an attempt to escape the pole jabs.

Of course this was the proof of the game plan as the whacker stood in position near the window with the tennis racket cocked and ready. Don’t mourn the bat so quickly. These creatures come well equipped for this game. Their radar was effective at avoiding all but the fastest and best placed swings. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your particular point of view, the tennis racket occasionally would find its intended target.

It’s not clear if there was a score to this game or the challenge of connecting with just one bat was enough. No one in my generation has ever played bat tennis so this may remain a mystery until a later generation. My generation has not been enlightened as to how many times bat tennis was played or if it was a one time event. Nonetheless even if the game was played only once, it has been a story enjoyed ever summer for over 50 years.

Note to all PETA readers who may trip upon this tale: The latest generation of Evans has come to see their bats in the attic as friends. As Jack reminds us, bats eat 20 times their weight in mosquitoes every day (and leave the evidence on the attic floor!)".
John 2008