Labor activist Louise Parry, 85, dedicated life to empowering workers

With her bloodline, Louise Parry could have silver-spooned her way through life. Her father was the namesake for Camp Long in West Seattle. Her husband's great-grandfather was a city mayor.

Instead, she and her husband, Will Parry, dedicated their lives to empowering workers. A lifelong labor activist, Louise Long Parry died of a stroke on June 29 at 85.

If there was a picket line, Mrs. Parry was there: a phone-company strike in the 1940s, the grape boycotts of the 1960s and 1970s, South Africa consulate protests in the 1980s and World Trade Organization demonstrations in 2000.

"She's made more damn potato salads and casseroles and fruit plates than anyone," said her husband. "She always got there early to arrange the chairs, always stayed late to clean up at the end. Just the kind of person any organization needs. All her life she was that way."

The day after she died, a mailing party for the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans met, thanks to phone calls she made earlier that week. Even in retirement, Mrs. Parry immersed herself in the senior movement, fighting to defend Social Security, to defeat a recent bill changing the Medicare program, and to organize senior trips to Canada to buy prescription drugs.

Mrs. Parry was born in 1920 in Seattle. Her father was William Long, a juvenile-court judge, but she set out to build a life and name of her own.

She attended the University of Washington, where the seeds of labor activism were planted. During World War II she moved to Massachusetts and became a Navy welder, building vessels that carried soldiers to the shores of Europe and North Africa.

Her politics were further fueled when she returned to Seattle and married Will Parry, a reporter for a left-wing newspaper called the New World and the great-grandson of Seattle Mayor Byron Phelps. In the 1950s, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The FBI followed the couple all the way to the Olympic Peninsula on a fishing trip and even inspected their creel, Will Parry said.

While working at a garment factory, Mrs. Parry had the union contract translated into Chinese for immigrant workers. She taught preschool after her children, Jonathan and Naomi, were born. Ever the pragmatist, Mrs. Parry used to say that kids already knew how to count — just pass out a plate of raisin cookies and watch them pick the cookie with the most raisins.

At 50, she completed her bachelor's degree in social work from the University of Washington.

She became a secretary for the diabetes-research program at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center when she was 60 and was active in the Washington Federation of State Employees, which gave her an Outstanding Service Award in 1993.

With peace activists and Quakers, she founded Family Camp, a 50-year-old summer tradition at the Lake Wenatchee YMCA. What started with 10 families now draws more than 100 people and four generations.

For 30 years, she played violin for the Seattle Philharmonic Society orchestra. She taught son Jonathan, now a professional fiddler, how to play when he was 7.

Even though she could have moved up in the orchestra, she was happy in the second violin section, her husband said.

"She told me all she wanted to do was contribute to the orchestral sound," he said. "That was typical of her character. She had minimal flash and maximum staying power." The society gave her its Esther Tye Smith Award for Outstanding Service and Dedication in 1993.

When she interviewed for the job at the VA, her husband said, the doctor asked her, "If you had to single out your strongest qualification, what would it be?"

Mrs. Parry thought for a bit, and then said, "I show up."

"She missed one day in 15 years," her husband said.

Besides her husband, Mrs. Parry is survived by daughter Naomi Parry and her two children, Matthew and Will Poulin, in Santa Barbara, Calif.; and son Jonathan Parry and his daughter, Corrina Parry, in New York City, N.Y.

Donations may be made to the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans, 2800 First Avenue, Room 262, Seattle, WA 98121, or to a cause of one's choice. A memorial service will be held in August, but the date has not yet been set.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com