PORT ANGELES — Described as a woman of stature in body and character, longtime civic leader Dorothy Duncan died Monday at the age of 73, her family said Thursday.

“Dorothy was tall [5 feet, 11 inches],” said Nita Lynn, executive director of First Step Family Support Center.

“She also had a kind of presence. Dorothy had both.”

Her husband of 55 years, Dennis Duncan, said she died peacefully in his arms, becoming lucid despite the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.

In her final few moments, her husband said, she recognized him.

“She died in my arms. That was a sort of fairy tale ending.”

Mrs. Duncan, her daughter, Kathy Braun, remembered Thursday, had refocused her stay-at-home activism from Girl Scouts and Trinity Lutheran Church to public service after her last child, Pete, entered school.

She served as a Port Angeles city councilwoman and as the city’s first woman mayor, then was elected to three consecutive four-year terms as a Clallam County commissioner, serving from 1985 to 1997.

She also was elected to the freeholders group that drafted Clallam County’s home rule charter in 1975, and to the Port Angeles school board, where she served until advancing Alzheimer’s disease forced her resignation in 2002.

Dennis Duncan said she’d had an early political inoculation.

Democrats on the air

“The story that she told often was that when she and her parents drove back on a long trip of some kind, the only solace she had was listening to the Democratic convention,” he said.

“She was a staunch Democrat. She had a concern for the little guy, the ordinary working person.”

One of her accomplishments was fighting to a standstill the Northern Tier Pipeline and its proposal to make Port Angeles its oil port.

Mrs. Duncan and Port Angeles activist Norma Turner together fought the port.

“They were great friends and allies,” Dennis Duncan recalled.

“Many times, they would be sitting at the kitchen table, plotting.”

Mrs. Duncan, her husband and daughter said, was vilified when she was convinced to stand for her church vestry board.

‘Got a lot of hatred’

“She got a lot of almost hatred from women, mostly, in the congregation,” Dennis Duncan said.

Later, she became the confidante of legislators, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair — who represents the 6th District, which includes the North Olympic Peninsula — and former Gov. Booth Gardner.

But when she launched her political career, Kathy Braun said, “it was very uncommon and somewhat controversial for a woman to be in politics.

“‘You should be home baking pies’ was one person’s response to her campaigning, so she blazed some trails in that area.”

Braun said her mother “quietly took her stand” on women’s rights.

“A lot of those things have come because people like my mother have stood up and said this was the right thing to do.”

Among her other activities were First Step, where she served on the board of directors; Port Angeles Downtown Association, where she spearheaded beautification projects; teaching parent effectiveness training and communications classes; the Port Angeles Children’s Theatre, where she sewed costumes and played roles; a Great Books discussion group; and the Yosemite Park Institute board of directors.

Birthed baby in a Beetle

She made news when she delivered Laura, her second daughter, in the front seat of the family’s Volkswagen Beetle.

Mrs. Duncan was a Port Angeles native who spent her childhood summers at the Lake Crescent home of her father, who owned Port Angeles’ movie theaters.

She later would say that being on the high school debate team was the most useful part of her education.

Still, Dennis Duncan said, she hated campaigning and avoided publicity.

Yet she didn’t shrink from controversy, he added, recalling an auditorium full of angry taxpayers.

“She walked out on that stage, and she quieted them all down, and she explained what was going on.

“It was really something.”

“She was hard as a rock,” Braun said. “She was there when you needed her.”

PA: ‘Greatest little town’

Dorothy Duncan also was an unshrinking booster of her hometown, describing it as “‘the greatest little town in the world” in an interview on the CBS Evening News.

Her daughter also called her “a very gifted mediator. She could get people to get common ground.”

Husband and father agreed, however, that her first priority was her family and her marriage.

“When I married her, I was a farm boy, hay between my toes,” said Dennis Duncan, a junior high and elementary science and math teacher.

He earned master’s and doctoral degrees, taking his wife and family across the country to perform graduate studies at Midwestern colleges.

Found the good in people

“I changed an enormous amount from who I was — but she never once asked me to do that,” he said.

“In a quiet way, she looked and found the good in people. I’m not sure how she did it.”

Sweethearts since high school — they met when she was selling tickets at her father’s movie theater — the couple never fell out of love until Alzheimer’s Disease destroyed Dorothy Duncan’s ability to communicate.

She lived the last 2¬½ years in the Golden Years home, where Dennis Duncan visited her every other day.

“I’m really grateful for her life,” he said.

Retired from teaching, “I’m a storyteller now. I go to schools and tell stories.

“I wouldn’t have done that it if it weren’t for her. I’m a totally different guy from the guy who came off the farm.”

Born Dorothy Christine Halberg to Edwin and Victoria Halberg, Mrs. Duncan is survived by her husband; brothers Ed, Bob and John Halberg; daughters and sons-in-law Kathy and Scott Braun of Port Angeles, Laura and Al Boss of Seattle, Linda and Grant Huglin of Boise, Idaho, and son-in-law Dick Krattli of Federal Way; nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her daughter, Chris Krattli.

A memorial service will begin at 1 p.m. Dec. 15 at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Port Angeles.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to First Step Family Support Center or Hospice of Clallam County.

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Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.