Carolyn Dimmick Final PDF.indd - Washington Secretary of State

thing. I think that the District Court judge slot came open in Kirkland, in the Northeast District.
I think I called Chuck Carroll and asked him about it, and he said, “Yeah, you should go for it.” …
He wanted his deputies to do well. Chuck wanted us all to go be judges and get on the Superior
Court. He was a good mentor in that regard. I got to know him very well later on when he was
retired, and at home, lonely. He’d have lunches. He’d invite all the old-time political figures,
and for some reason I got to go, even though I was the only woman there. (Former governor)
Al Rosellini would be there, and sometimes an ex-mayor would come along. It was very nice.
Hughes: What kind of person was Chuck Carroll?
Dimmick: He was a nice man, but he was a lonely man.
Hughes: Why was he lonely?
Dimmick: He’d lost a lot of his close friends. And then his wife died and he was living alone. He
was lonely, and he had had some heart attacks. During the last few times that I was there to
see him he had a caregiver with him.
Hughes: But he stayed in touch and said, “I’m really proud of you Carolyn”?
Dimmick: Yes he did. He’d call me up at night and I would go over and he’d have sandwiches
brought in. He’d always have four or five people there, and if it was somebody’s birthday he’d
have a cake for them. This is the last couple years (of his life). (Carroll died in 2003 at the age
of 96.)
Hughes: Any other really good friends and associates that you made during that era, working
for Charles O. Carroll in the Prosecutor’s Office?
Dimmick: Well, Barbara Durham, (a future Supreme Court justice), became a very good friend
of mine.
A 1998 luncheon for former members of Charles O. Carroll’s staff at the King County Prosecutor’s Office. Carolyn Dimmick
and Barbara Durham are side-by-side, sixth and seventh from left. Carroll is eighth from right.
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