Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, sister and dear friend to many, passed away on July 14, 2017. She was 80. Evelyn was born on February 25, 1937 at Humboldt General Hospital in Winnemucca, Nevada to Walter and Alma (Nelson) Polkinghorne, where she lived her entire life as a third generation Nevadan. Evelyn lived for several years on the family ranch in Pumpernickel Valley before becoming a “town girl”, where she graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1955 from Humboldt County High School. From there she attended, on a full academic scholarship, and graduated from Stanford University in 1959 with a major in political science and a minor in Chinese. She passed the written civil service exam in 1959, but was discouraged as a female from taking the oral examination, as the examination board made it difficult for women applicants, and since she was returning to Winnemucca to get married.
