Thelma Katherine Brown Sergent, age 86, died Nov. 9 at Messenger House.

She was born July 24, 1917 in Beulah, N.D.

When she was a little girl, her father called her “daddy’s dolly.” She was too little to pronounce it, so she said “dobby dobby dobby.”

Her sisters then called her “Dobby” and the name, to her mild chagrin, stuck. All of her nieces and nephews called her Aunt Dobby, and her grandkids called her Grandma Dobby.

When she was in high school, she was a member of a roller skating team that traveled around the area giving exhibitions of trick skating. She played jazz saxophone, and was a lifelong jazz lover.

Her father, Archie Brown, ran a small-town paper called the Beulah Independent, where the sisters learned the newspaper trade.

Her father died when she was 17 and she took over substantial responsibility for the paper’s production, doing everything from setting type to setting editorial policy.

In 1942, she joined her mother and sisters in Seattle, where she took a job as a pressman at Kelly’s Print Shop at Second and Union. It was there she became the first woman west of the Mississippi River to get a journeyman’s card in the Pressman’s Union.

Near the end of World War II she met and married Jim Sergent. They moved to Lee Hill in North Auburn and started a family in 1950, when her son Jim was born. Her daughter Nora followed in 1955.

She was active in the local garden club and was a Cub Scout den mother. Many holiday and general family gatherings were held at her place, out on the farm.

When the rented house her family lived in was put up for sale, they moved to Bainbridge Island, because “$28,000 was just too much money for 48 acres and a house.”

She took a job as a housekeeper at Messenger House and was soon promoted to head housekeeper. While working in that capacity, she oversaw unionization of the workforce and instigated the first nursing-home workers’ strike in Washington’s history.

She walked the picket lines from dawn until after dark, seven days a week, and when the strike eventually went to federal arbitration, she served as the union’s representative.

While living on Bainbridge Island, she was active in the Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church, where she taught Sunday school. She was also a Campfire leader and was active in Girl Scouts.

In the mid 70s, she and her husband moved to Ballard and took over operation of Lou’s Market, a corner grocery. Later they ran another grocery, Brier Market.

She went back to school and, at 62 years of age, got her nurse’s aid certification.

When her husband died, she moved back to Bainbridge Island and worked as a nurse’s aid at Messenger House until her retirement at age 80.

She is survived by her son, Jim Sergent (Ann Fisher) of Bainbridge; her daughter, Nora (Ron) Tiffany of Bainbridge; her grandchildren, Sophie Tiffany, Mark Tiffany, Samantha Sergent and Rose Fisher-Sergent; and her great-granddaughter, Haylee Pearson.

Services will be held at a later date. Remembrances can be made to Helpline House.