Carolyn Dimmick Final PDF.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Dimmick: I don’t think we do. You can get a divorce with a court commissioner in the
superior court. I don’t even think you go in front of the judge any more.
Hughes: Did you draw any conclusions as a young woman in that era, and now as an older
woman who has been in the judiciary, about divorce?
Dimmick: Well, having been marred for 50 years, before my husband died, I figured I
didn’t need a divorce.
Hughes: I’ll say. Congratulations on that long marriage. When did Cy die?
Dimmick: About three years ago (2006).
Hughes: Had he been ill?
Dimmick: Yes. He was hooked up to a ventilator for three years.
Hughes: I’m so sorry.
Dimmick: Emphysema and COPD, and whatever that was.
Hughes: I didn’t ask you enough about Cy. So you resolved to get married. You said he
was a golfer sort of whimsically. What kind of fellow was he?
Dimmick: Well, it’s pretty hard to describe.
Hughes: Gregarious, good attorney?
Dimmick: Good attorney.
Hughes: He was in private practice all those years.
Dimmick: He was with Savage for a while – Dimmick, Simpson & Savage. And then he
went out on his own in Lake Forest Park. He wanted to stay in the Attorney General’s
Office, but a Democrat came in in 1957 and so he was out. O’Connell came in so Cy was
out.
Hughes: John J. O’Connell. But Cy was Irish, too. O’Connell should have liked that.
Dimmick: That didn’t work. He was too close to Eastvold. So that was that. And then he
went into private practice.
Hughes: Is it tough on the spouse of a judge to be a practicing attorney? Are there some
tight-ropes to walk there?
Dimmick: You just don’t go in front of my court.
Hughes: How long did you stay working for Charles O. Carroll in the Prosecutor’s Office?
39