Ailing Edmonds Councilwoman shares journey

In other circumstances, a politician wearing a large button that proclaims how much a city loves her might seem like vanity or campaign spin.

But Edmonds really does love Peggy.

Peggy is Edmonds City Councilwoman Margaret Pritchard Olson, daughter of Joel Pritchard, the late Republican state legislator, congressman and lieutenant governor. Six months ago, Olson was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, an incurable degenerative neurological disorder.

She wears the "Edmonds Loves Peggy" button on sweat shirts and suit jackets, to City Council meetings and to weekly meetings of "Team Peggy," a group of more than 30 women who have volunteered to support her through her illness and, along the way, raise money and awareness of ALS.

The Evergreen Chapter of the ALS Association said it encourages families and friends to set up "share the care" networks to provide support to patients. But the Team Peggy group far exceeds the typical 10 to 12 members.

"It's the largest 'share the care' team I've ever seen," said Mary Rebar, the Evergreen chapter's patient-care coordinator for the North Sound. "Peggy is a public person, and she's chosen to walk this journey in public. Everyone seems to know her."

Olson came late to politics. Although she worked on many of her father's campaigns from the late 1960s through the 1980s, she didn't seek office herself until 2003, after she and her husband, Norm, had been living in Edmonds for more than a decade.

While working with a group opposed to the Brightwater sewage-treatment plant in Edmonds, Olson made several appearances before the Edmonds City Council, and noticed that one councilwoman was repeatedly on the losing end of 6-1 or 5-2 votes.

"She wasn't working with other members. She wasn't effective at getting things passed," Olson recalled. Her father had always said that the point of elected office was to get work done.

Olson won the election, on the strength of her campaigning.

"She doorbelled every house in the city," said her husband.

Across their Edmonds living room, Olson corrects him: "Close."

Father, daughter traits

Russ Hokanson, a former aide and campaign manager to her father, advised Olson's campaign. He said that Pritchard and his daughter shared an ability to connect with people, to listen to them and to earn their trust. And like her father, Olson was determined to win.

"Peggy has the same competitive fire that Joel did," Hokanson said.

Olson won re-election in November. The second time around, she had no opponent. She began to consider a run for the state Legislature, a job her father held for 12 years.

Then on April 24 — her 58th birthday — she got a diagnosis that ended even modest political ambitions. The double vision, the puzzling drag in her left foot — both were symptoms of ALS.

"Happy birthday!" Olson says, her sense of irony intact, even as her throat increasingly struggles to form the words.

At the next City Council meeting, Olson announced that she had ALS but would like to stay on the council as long as she could continue to perform her duties.

"She's tough," said Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson. Even as the disease has progressed over the past six months, he said, Olson has arrived at council meetings thoroughly prepared and "fired up" about issues.

"It's hard for her to speak," he said, "but she does."

Lonely experience

One of the first friends to learn of Olson's diagnosis was Pat Greenstreet, a nurse turned attorney whose own mother died of ALS almost 20 years ago. Greenstreet helped nurse her mother from her diagnosis to her death six months later, helped only by an aunt and one of her mother's friends. Each day, she said, her mother lost a function she'd had the previous day.

"It was so lonely, going through that experience with my mom," Greenstreet said. "I thought, 'there has to be a better way.' "

She and Olson were already among a dozen women who met twice a month to watch old movies that featured strong female characters. The "Chick Flick" group would morph into "Team Peggy." They'd help Olson and her family face the illness and eventually provide care and help with chores and errands or whatever they might need.

Greenstreet suggested that Olson might have some other acquaintances who would want to sign on.

"That's when we learned we weren't Peggy's only friends," Greenstreet says.

Olson was a past president of the Friends of the Edmonds Library and organized its annual book sale for eight years. She help found the Washington Tea Party, which mobilized community opposition to the Brightwater plant.

There were her sorority sisters from Seattle Pacific University, her friends from Soroptimists and from her 30 years as a travel agent, her City Hall friends and those from the Edmonds United Methodist Church.

"It turned out she has friends all over the U.S. and up and down the West Coast. And if they don't know her, they knew her father," Greenstreet said.

Team Peggy's initial goal was to raise money for Saturday's annual ALS walk. To date, 73 people have signed up for the walk, and "Team Peggy" has raised $12,000.

But the group didn't stop there. They planned another fundraiser for October and, along with Olson, are trying to learn as much as they can about ALS.

National support

Team members also e-mailed around the country to get support for a national ALS registry. Currently, when ALS patients die, the cause often is listed as suffocation or asphyxiation, and not the disease, making it harder to collect accurate statistics. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would create a national database on the prevalence and incidence of ALS.

As her ability to walk and speak falters, Olson focuses on the positive. She said "Team Peggy" is one of the amazing things to come out of her diagnosis.

"These are women who constantly ask, 'What can we do?' " Olson said.

Joel Pritchard died of cancer in 1997, at age 72. Olson said she learned many lessons from her father, from the way he faced his illness to the way he treated people throughout his life:

Don't make an enemy out of your opponent. Treat even those you disagree with with respect. Don't dwell on the bad things about your illness. It doesn't help.

She said that her father loved being around people and they loved him. Those who knew Pritchard and Olson say it's another trait they share.

Lynn Thompson: 206-464-8305 or lthompson@seattletimes.com