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Skagit River JournalFree Home Page Stories & Photos The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness |
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HistoryLink.org: Crowley, Walt (1947-2007) After several years of chronic throat and voice problems, Walt Crowley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer on July 15, 2005. He began treatment at Group Health Cooperative in August, but chemo and radiation therapy ultimately failed to kill the disease, necessitating removal of his larynx on February 9, 2007. Following another surgery in September 2007, Walt died from complications at 8:10 in the evening on September 21, 2007. (Read more)
Do not go gentle into that good night Do not go gentle into that good night,
By Dylan Thomas
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Crosscut.com: Walt Crowley, 1947-2007 By Knute Berger He lived the history of modern Seattle, from the volatile '60s in the streets of the University District to disruptive innovation on the World Wide Web. Sad news about the death of Seattle author, pundit, and historian Walt Crowley, who passed away Friday, Sept. 21, after complications from surgery.
The last time I saw Walt was at a Historic Seattle event at the University of Washington this summer, where he was touting the upcoming 100th anniversary of Seattle's first coming-out party, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. It was also the first time I had seen Walt since he'd had cancer surgery earlier this year. He'd had his larynx removed. Knowing him as guy who liked to talk (and talk), I wondered how he'd do speaking through an electronic voice box.
I shouldn't have worried. Even without his voice, Walt was still Walt, irrepressible as ever. Before his lecture began, he was silently directing his assistants in setting up a screen for his PowerPoint presentation. I realized how expressive he was even as a mime: the gesturing arms, the theatrical expressions, the eyeball rolling — all the things we remember from watching him perform as a regular commentator on KIRO-TV in the 1980s and '90s when he provided the liberal point to John Carlson's conservative counterpoint.
Before his surgery, he'd written me: "Armed with a talking dildo, I'll soon sound just like Stephen W. Hawking, making me 'the smartest guy in the room' wherever I go." The fact that an ascot had replaced his trademark bow-tie only added to the effect.
Walt Crowley often was the smartest guy in the room — and when he wasn't the smartest, he was the most voluble. Over the years, I watched his career grow and morph. The first time I encountered his work was seeing his psychedelic flower-power political artwork in the pages of Seattle's '60s underground paper, The Helix, where he worked with his future frequent collaborator on historical projects, Paul Dorpat.
As a young political activist, Walt soon generated a large FBI file, which was less a commentary on his radicalism than on the excesses of the J. Edgar Hoover era. It likely made him very sensitive to the political witch hunts of the Clinton years, when Walt and his wife, Marie McCaffrey, became friends and tireless supporters of Whitewater scandal victim Susan McDougal.
By then, Walt had already turned from activist to insider. In the early '70s, he took a job in Mayor Wes Uhlman's administration. He later ran for City Council and worked as head speechwriter for Gov. Mike Lowry. In the 1980s, he joined the staff ofSeattle Weekly and later became a widely recognized political radio and TV pundit. He also began authoring local history books. One of most entertaining was Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle, the definitive book on an era whose hallmark is being forgotten by those who were actually there. But Walt hadn't forgotten much, and he'd been part of it all, from the University District street riots to the Sky River Rock Festival.
In the 1990s, Walt morphed into a Web pioneer with the encyclopedic HistoryLink.org, a Web site that has become an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Seattle and Washington heritage. I say heritage because the Web site embodies more than just a dry look at popular history but manages to capture the essence of the place, in part because HistoryLink doesn't attempt to sugarcoat the past.
Walt certainly wasn't a sugar-coater. In too-nice Seattle, he was often ready with a snarky quip or a sharply worded opinion. His views weren't always predictable — he opposed putting a cap on the height of downtown high-rises when many greens favored it. He was also a feisty proponent of the things he loved. He was a preservationist who went to bat more than once to save the Blue Moon Tavern, not only a favorite watering hole but a place that embodies the kind of unruly city that Walt understood and loved. His independence, combined with his wide-ranging knowledge, made Walt a go-to guy for working reporters. I haven't done a database search, but I'll bet that a good chunk of his legacy can be found there in the sage quotes and pithy observations he made about Seattle
It seems fitting that the most comprehensive biography of Walt is the one that can be found at HistoryLink. Somehow, clicking there is a fitting way to remember him and the good work — and many links — he's left.
Crowley penned a plan for HistoryLink's future By Tan Vinh Seattle Times staff reporter The day before Walt Crowley was hospitalized for surgery, he typed a two-page "Just in Case" letter to his wife, emphasizing his desire to keep HistoryLink.org going and listing potential candidates to replace him.
Crowley, 60, who had been fighting laryngeal cancer for two years, underwent surgery Wednesday, suffered a stroke the following day and died Friday night. His wife, Marie McCaffrey, said the letter is assurance that the popular online encyclopedia of Washington history will continue to run smoothly because it outlines in detail how the Web site is to be run.
The letter includes three potential successors and also a request that journalists be hired to write essays for the site, his wife said. She declined to release details until the HistoryLink board of trustees, which will meet within two weeks, has had a chance to see the letter.
Crowley, of Seattle, co-founded the nonprofit Web site with his wife in 1997, and it has become a go-to resource for students, historians and journalists. It receives 4 million hits a month.
Among the many roles he played during his life, Crowley was a former city planner, TV commentator and a speechwriter for a governor. But he was probably best known as a public historian through the Web site and in connection with books he and his wife collaborated on, including the histories of the Rainier Club and Seattle University.
"We will have to find several people to replace him," McCaffrey said. "He's kind of hard to replace. He was the development director, the [executive] director, the main editor and writer."
HistoryLink.org: Crowley, Walt (1947-2007) We are sad to share the news that Walt Crowley, the leading Internet publisher of the history of Seattle and Washington state, is about to undergo surgery on his larynx, due to recurring cancer. Walt is an old friend from those halcyon days in Seattle when we raged against the establishment and assisted aspiring politicians such as Mike Lowry and Wes Uhlman. We urge you to bookmark his site, historylink.org, which features thousands of history essays. We also urge you to join us in wishing him well and including him in prayers, if you are so inclined. Here is the Feb. 9, 2007, story from the Seattle Times, which announced his impending surgery. Historian Walt Crowley undergoes cancer surgery
With Feb. 14 update
A voice of Seattle faces a challenge With 12 hours left on his voice, Walt Crowley popped in a tape at the party in his Phinney Ridge home Thursday night. On it, a 20-years-younger Crowley delivered a speech to Vietnam veterans at Seattle Center, his tone true, his pitch sure.
When it stopped, he turned on the mic. Without it, the crowd would not have heard Crowley's voice. It's now just a gravelly rasp.
Crowley, the longtime chronicler of Seattle's people, places and things, has cancer of the larynx.
The party, dubbed "Famous Last Words," was a last chance for friends to hear him speak. Former Seattle mayors Norm Rice and Wes Uhlman and about a hundred other friends mingled over hot dogs and chocolate cake.
Today, "I'm having my throat ripped out," Crowley said. In an eight-hour operation, surgeons will remove his larynx and cut a hole in his throat for him to breathe through — good-bye to his trademark bow ties, he has blogged.
"It's really famous last natural words," Crowley said of the party. "We'll find a way to make noise on the other side."
Rather than suffer privately, Crowley, 59, has turned his disease into a real-time historical event. This past week, Crowley took his voice on a farewell tour, appearing on public radio and local TV news stations. He has blogged about his disease, with photos of him rubbing his bald head and holding up the fist of Black Power in his Che Guevara beret. (Crowley is Irish-American-English.)
Crowley is perhaps best-known most recently as the co-founder and executive director for the nonprofit that runs HistoryLink.org, an online encyclopedia of Washington history. He, his wife, Marie McCaffrey, and Paul Dorpat, a local historian and Seattle Times contributor, started the site in 1998. It now has about 4,500 essays written by staff, contributing writers and volunteers.
But Crowley has a long history of his own in Seattle. He has been a newspaperman, a television-news commentator, a speech writer for former Gov. Mike Lowry and a policy planner for the city of Seattle. He has written a dozen books on local institutions, including the Rainier Club, the Blue Moon Tavern and Seattle University. Crowley was also an early board member on the defunct Seattle Monorail project.
John Carlson, the conservative radio commentator and former Republican gubernatorial candidate who used to debate Crowley on KIRO TV's "Point-Counterpoint" segments in the late 1980s, called him "the institutional memory of Seattle."
In July 2005, Crowley, a former smoker, was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. While most of his work on HistoryLink.org is written, he relies on his voice to fundraise, speak on television and in community meetings, and to do interviews as a resource on local history. He said he wishes he could be in Olympia this week to lobby for state funding for the site.
His greatest fear of having cancer, he has said, is that people would write him off as dead. "That's not good for fundraising," he said.
He makes his living as a freelance writer so he didn't have health insurance. Group Health, for which he was updating a history, hired him on and covered his medical expenses. He went through four months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
But in December, his doctor said the cancer had returned. It was time to remove his voice.
After he recovers from surgery, Crowley plans to use an electric larynx. He quips that he will sound like physicist Stephen Hawking, who Crowley figures is the smartest guy in the world.
The past 18 months have been the most touching of his life, he said at the party. Friends have teamed up to give him rides to the hospital for his cancer treatments and patiently waited with him and his wife, Marie, for hours in doctor's offices.
As he toasted his guests Thursday night, Crowley said he has decided what his last natural words — and his first electronic words — will be: "I love you, Marie."
[By Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com] We also offer kudos to Group Health.
Update February. 14 Good news from Pam Heath.
Just judging by the look of his hospital room, I think that it was a good day for Walt. Now that he's in a regular hospital room, flowers are starting to appear. To help compensate for the "no visitors" policy, Marie has put up photos of friends all over the wall. Barbara Thomas dropped off a few books, nicely lined up by the window. The Crowley's favorite Sponge Bob pillow keeps Walt company. Gifts and mementos begin to accrete, like Alan Stein's Soviet Superman action doll (in the original box, of course).
And in medical news, Dr. Mehlum delivered the pathology results today on tissue samples taken during surgery: negative, every one. Undoubtedly there will be ups and downs as Walt recovers. Today, though, was pretty good. The kids send their love and hugs.
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