Dolores' 'guardian angels'

"If this was a stray cat, I would take her home," Kristin Jackson thought that night.

If only it were that easy.

This was a person. A woman. A dirty, seemingly dazed soul who had been living in the bus shelter across the street from The Seattle Times building for, well, no one really knew.

Long enough for the guys from the print shop to be bringing her coffee and sandwiches on a regular basis. Long enough for one Times editor, Karen West, to be storing blankets under her desk and delivering them to the woman, Dolores Gancher, every day when Gancher returned to the bus shelter after roaming the city.

Jackson called West the first night she came upon Gancher, and shared her mixed feelings. It was wrong that Gancher was living like that, but what to do?

For the next 24 years, the women would answer that question. Along with friend Solveig Torvik, they fed Gancher, kept her warm, dealt with social-service agencies on her behalf. They raised money to put Gancher in an apartment, and collected donated furniture, home and personal goods to fill it. They visited, they drove, they consulted with doctors and social workers. They even helped connect her with a sister whom Gancher had, for 40 years, believed to be dead.

Now, Jackson and West are making funeral arrangements.

Dolores Gancher died Monday night at Northwest Hospital of a massive infection. She was 78.

She is survived, officially, by a sister, niece and nephew. But she is also being mourned by three women who gave part of their lives to make a difference in hers. Right to the very end.

"I was really determined to see if an individual human being could adopt a homeless person and improve their circumstances," said West, now retired from the newspaper, and living in the Methow Valley. "I just knew there must be some way."

Said Jackson, a travel writer and editor at The Times: "I felt it was the best charity/volunteer work I could do, with instant rewards, in terms of seeing someone get off the street for good."

It was, at times, maddening. Gancher panicked at any hint of authority. She once received a letter from a state agency, saying she needed a psychiatric evaluation in order to continue receiving benefits. Rather than comply, she took off, leaving her apartment and everything in it.

Months later, West got a call from a hospital in Washington, D.C., where Gancher had arrived by bus. She returned to Seattle with a donated bus ticket.

"It turns out that she was so scared by filling out forms that she just ran," West said. "So I figured she needed help with paperwork."

West and Jackson opened a bank account with Gancher, saw that she received Social Security benefits and handled her rent and grocery bills.

They advocated for her, "which is what anyone who is physically or mentally ill needs to navigate the system," Jackson said.

It was lots of work, but worth it. Gancher was almost always appreciative. She'd smile and thank her "girls," Jackson said, "Even though we're way, way past that age."

Every year on Gancher's birthday, the women took her to Vito's for a steak and then to the grocery store, where she was told to get whatever she wanted. Inevitably, she chose a cake, soda, Chinese takeout — never anything healthy.

Over the years, they pieced parts of her life together. She was born in Garfield, N.J. When she was young, her parents divorced and separated her from her sister. She spent time on the streets and in shelters before somehow landing in Seattle, and that bus shelter at Fairview and John streets, where West and Jackson just happened to see her.

"Dolores had a sort of magic about her," Jackson said. "She somehow made you want to help her. She had a wry little smile, a merriness amid the chaos of her life and mind."

Other people reached out to help Gancher: A woman at Social Security who gave Jackson her direct line. The apartment manager who kept an eye on Gancher, "and would phone me when Dolores' moods went wild," Jackson said. Gancher's next-door-neighbor who, despite being down on her luck, would bring her hot coffee.

A couple of years ago, a Harborview social worker got Gancher into a nursing home. And when she died the other night at Northwest, a doctor and nurse "treated this impoverished woman, with a ravaged body and mind, with respectful, wonderful compassion," Jackson said.

Isn't that what we all want, no matter our circumstances? And is it that hard, that time-consuming to do? Not compared to what West and Jackson — and so many others — did for a woman whose life may have appeared worthless to some, but turned out to be a gift of friendship and compassion for all involved.

"What Dolores showed us was that most people really want to help, and to do good," Jackson said. "Although she's gone, there's a happy ending."

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

And you, too, Taz, you nut.