Diane Carlson Evans, Minnesotan who founded Vietnam Women's Memorial, dead at 79

Diane Carlson Evans, the Minnesota native and Army veteran who founded the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C., died Wednesday at age 79.

Carlson Evans grew up on a dairy farm in Buffalo, Minnesota. She graduated from nursing school in Minneapolis before joining the Army Nurse Corps, according to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. 

She spent one year serving in Vietnam, where she worked in the burn unit of the 36th Evacuation Hospital in Vung Tau and the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku.  

After her service, Carlson Evans spent years working to establish a separate memorial for the more than 265,000 American women who served in the war effort, co-founding the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation in 1984.

The foundation successfully lobbied Congress for the memorial, which was approved in 1988 and unveiled in 1993.

"It really helped me come out and say, 'Yes, I am a veteran, and I served in a war,'" Carlson Evans told CBS News in 2024. "I finally became very proud of what I did." 

Carlson Evans received the Presidential Citizens Medal last year from former President Joe Biden.