Ron was nicknamed “Captain America” by his crew mates (always think it’s cute that the actor who has been playing Captain America in the most recent Marvel films also has the last name Evans – I’ve sometimes wondered if they might be related. Hmm.)

Ron’s family had a cat called Sombrio Diablo (Shady Devil).

Above - a section of a picture from Baltimore Sun’s archive showing Sombrio Diablo.

Ron used to spend a lot of his free time with his own children and children from the neighborhood.

“Ron, when he would be home on a Saturday, he always loaded up his Suburban with all the little children in the neighborhood. Sometimes he’d have ten or twelve children.”

- Jan Evans. JSC Oral History Project.

One day, Ron and his crew rescued a box of kittens from a dump…

“…they brought home a very large seed box with eight baby kittens in it, I put my foot down. Of course, we took a few days to find homes for all those kittens. Of course, it was a good lesson for all these children. They couldn’t believe that somebody would take these living things to a dump and leave them in a box where they couldn’t get out. So he had lots of fun with all the neighborhood children, and they all have fond memories of him.”
- Jan Evans. JSC Oral History Project.

Ron misplaced his blunt-nosed surgical scissors during Apollo 17 on the way out from Earth. Harrison Schmitt found them on the way home, but he and Gene didn’t tell Ron until after they returned to Earth…

At the splashdown party we had at the Flight Control Division - probably a month after the mission - we presented the scissors to Ron with great fanfare”

- Harrison Schmitt - Apollo 17 Lunar Surface Journal.