By Tan Vinh
Julie Emery was an author and Seattle Times reporter who covered the trials in the 1983 Wah Mee massacre, at that time the biggest case in King County history.
But years later when friends asked what she was most proud of, Miss Emery without hesitation would mention the Tibetan refugees she drove to school and the Tibetan families she took to the doctor.
Miss Emery, who was one of the state’s biggest advocates for the Tibetan community, died in her sleep at her Seattle home Friday morning from a heart attack, according to her niece, Julie McKagan. She was 79.
Born June 10, 1925, she grew up in Skamokawa, Wahkiakum County, with two brothers and a sister. Her father was a commercial fisherman, so it was always a treat for Miss Emery to eat chicken dinners at her aunt’s house. She grew tired of salmon every night, she would later tell friends.
Miss Emery dreamed of living in Seattle and being a reporter, though her family had no money to pay for college, her niece said.
But she was determined to go to the University of Washington, and she did. “She would work a quarter, then go to school for a quarter. She had to pay her own way, since her father passed away when she was 10. There was no other option,” McKagan said.
At age 24, Miss Emery was hired by The Seattle Times as a copy aide, one of the few women in the newsroom at the time, former colleagues said. She eventually moved up to reporting, covering higher education.
But it was on the courthouse beat where the small-town girl got to cover the biggest mass murder in state history.
On Feb. 18, 1983, three young men entered the Wah Mee Club, an exclusive gambling club in Seattle’s Chinatown International District, and hog-tied, robbed and shot 14 people. Thirteen died, but a dealer at the club survived and later testified against the men.
The trials made a name for Miss Emery around the King County Courthouse, said County Prosecutor Norm Maleng.
It was a time before the Internet or Court TV, so to get in-depth information everyone read Miss Emery, said Chief U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik, then-deputy prosecutor in the three Wah Mee trials.
In 1990, Miss Emery helped write a book, “Princess in the Land of Snows,” with Jamyang Sakya, a refugee from a prominent Tibetan family.
It was an autobiography about the woman’s struggle against communist China and her escape to freedom on foot through the Himalayas. The book’s forward was written by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.
After retiring from The Times at age 65, Miss Emery became one of the state’s biggest advocates for Tibetans, a people who lost their homeland to China in 1959.
She mentored several Tibetan children and wrote letters to the editor about the Tibetans’ plight.
She spent the last week of her life driving Tibetan children to school, driving some elderly Tibetans to the doctor and attending a lecture on Tibetan culture, said her Tibetan friends.
The Tibetan community is devastated, Sakya said. “Every day, she would call and would ask if she could do anything.”
Miss Emery never married. She lived in the same apartment for more than 25 years, said her friends. She was an early riser who spent hours reading newspapers and news magazines every day, and she loved animals so much that she fed the raccoons and squirrels around her apartment. She took dozens of stray cats to the vet, paying the medical bills herself, said her friends.
Animals and the Tibetan community were her life, said her longtime friend Polly Lane.
Miss Emery is survived by nephews Gary and Dennis Emery of Cathlamet, Wahkiakum County, and nieces Sherry Ostling of Cathlamet and McKagan of Lynnwood. There will be no local service. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Snow Leopard Trust, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103.
