Valerie Methven Evans, 86, of Lenox died Wednesday morning at Kimball Farms Nursing Care Center.
Born in London in 1932, Val grew up during the war years and had vivid memories of the “London Blitz.” She and her brother, Nicholas, attended boarding schools in Surrey when their mother served as a driver for the FANYS (Field Auxiliary Nursing Yeomanry) in London while her father, an officer in the British Army, was serving in Burma.
After the war Val completed nurses’ training, first at Victoria Hospital for Children in Chelsea and then at St. Mary’s, Paddington. She was sister-in-charge at the London clinic, then, at the invitation of a nursing friend, traveled to the United States to take positions at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital and Boston’s Children’s. On returning to England, she was employed as a private nurse for Sir Winston Churchill, living for several months in the home of Sir Winston and Lady Churchill at Hyde Park Gate.
In the spring of 1963, Val traveled to Hong Kong to attend the marriage of her brother and worked as a private duty nurse in Hong Kong’s Canossa Hospital. While there, she met the man who became her husband, an American clergyman on the staff of the Anglican cathedral who was visiting her patient. Val and Tad (Theodore H. Evans) were married by Bishop R. O. Hall in October 1963, then lived in Saigon, Vietnam, for the next four years where the couple’s first child was born in 1965: Sally Elizabeth Evans. Illness and uncertainties of the war in Vietnam forced a return to the United States in 1967 where their son, Mark (Mark Methven Evans), was born. They then resided in Cambridge, and Stockbridge where Tad was rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church until retirement. During the Stockbridge, years Val enjoyed and excelled in many roles: wife, mother, gracious parish hostess, docent at the first Norman Rockwell Museum and sales clerk at Talbot’s in Lenox.
In addition to her husband of 55 years, Val is survived by her children, Sally E. Phelps and husband David of Nassau, New York, and Mark M. Evans of Ipswich; grandchildren Benjamin Muil and Owen and Wilson Evans; brother Nicholas and wife Anna; and nieces, nephews and cousins in Canada, England, Hong Kong and Australia.
There will be a memorial service in 2019 at the convenience of the family at Trinity Church, Lenox. In lieu of flowers, donations in Val’s memory may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association in care of the Roche Funeral Home, 120 Main St., Lenox, MA 01240. To share memories and stories, visit rochefuneralhome.com.
