You see them everywhere in Chevy Chase DC — oval brass historic markers that identify a house for the date it was built and the craftsmen who built it. But invisible to the eye is the woman has kept the plaque program alive for the past couple of decades. For that, we have the late Evelyn Mittman Wrin to thank.
Evelyn, along with her husband Bob, had lived in Chevy Chase DC for nearly a half century until her death July 17 after a sudden decline in her health. She was 85. The family, which includes a son and daughter, has lived in the 5500 block of Chevy Chase Parkway since 1978.
Evelyn was a Peace Corps volunteer, a lawyer, and a community activist. Born in 1938 in Wheaton, IL, she graduated from Mundelein College (now Loyola University) in 1961, and in 1975 earned a master’s degree in government and political science at the University of Maryland. In between, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines and had gotten married to Robert L. Wrin, with whom she spent honeymooning in the Peace Corps in Malawi. In 1982 she earned a law degree at George Washington University and spent the bulk of her career as a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). She retired in 2013.
Early in her career, Evelyn did work for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and became a lifelong advocate for historic preservation in DC and neighboring Montgomery County. She was a strong supporter of the creation of a historic district in Chevy Chase DC to preserve the historic architectural and streetscape integrity that she loved about her neighborhood. Evelyn was also passionate about advocating and fostering racial integration throughout the District of Columbia. She also served as long-time secretary of the Historic Preservation Subcommittee of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City.
While it was former HCCDC board member Mary Rowse who conceived of the plaque program, it was Evelyn and former HCCDC board member Jordan Benderly who are responsible for building the program and doggedly boosting its popularity. Originally, it was jointly sponsored by Historic Chevy Chase DC and the Chevy Chase DC Community Association. Evelyn worked tirelessly to keep the project relevant to our community, reaching out at regular intervals to remind homeowners that she would help research construction details of the house to design plaques that identify what makes their house unique. She personally worked with the foundry on each plaque, now numbering more than 300. To Evelyn, the plaques were another way to bring a community together.
Evelyn was a familiar site in many other aspects of the community of Chevy Chase DC, including her children’s PTAs at Lafayette, Deal, and Wilson (now Jackson-Reed) schools and at the Chevy Chase Community Center. She is a past president of the Chevy Chase Citizens’ Association (now Community Association) and also served as Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) Commissioner in ANC 4A in the
Shepherd Park neighborhood when ANCs were first established, prior to moving to Chevy Chase.
Evelyn’s husband Bob, and adult children Martin F. Wrin and Anna Marie W. Yombo, are planning a celebration of life and will announce a date soon. Evelyn’s obituary can be read here.