December 31, 2019
Written by Linda Goodrick
Charyl Kay Sedlik, one of GAGV’s founders is full of vim, vigor and to my delight, even vinegar! Growing up in Raymond, in the S.W. corner of WA she had her own BB gun and rifle to hunt the pesky pigeons and squirrels. Her father put venison on their table and her grandfather added bear meat from Alaska. For her family gun safety came first, so when Margy Heldring came to their knitting group after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and proposed, ‘we must do something’ those clever knitters Just Did It by launching GAGV. Charyl Kay knew it couldn’t be called Grandmothers Against Guns because every gun owner would automatically turn against us. The issue had to be gun safety not gun control and it had to be ‘grandmothers’ because grandmothers show up. She designed the first envelopes with Yvonne Banks to get people to join, chaired the membership committee and worked on the fundraising committee.
Charyl Kay has done more than just show up. She graduated from UW’s School of Nursing in 1967 and has served on their Advisory Board for 30 years. Her husband Earl is from Miami and they moved to Boston, where he got his graduate degree, returning in 1973 to the West Coast. Outspoken, here’s the vinegar: she worked as an operating room nurse at Yale and in those days the surgeons were kings in the O.R. The surgeon didn’t like the way she handed him the scissors and threw them on the floor. Charyl Kay then dropped the entire instrument tray on the floor, so everything had to be re-sterilized, delaying the surgery 10 minutes. Don’t mess with our girl!
In 1974 she became the first female pharmaceutical sales representative on the West Coast at the Upjohn Company, 1 in a group of 50. Her salary there was 10 years ahead of what nurses were paid. Yet again she made her mark and after 10 years, 30% of their sales force were women and they were doing 50% of the business. Result? The doors opened for women.
Fast forward and today Charyl Kay is a docent at the Seattle Art Museum on Thursdays and has sat on Boards for the Artist Trust and Pratt Fine Arts Center. Active in local politics she was also part of the Perugia-Seattle Sister City Association. She also serves on the Institutional Review Board for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. It reviews study protocols to uphold ethical standards for research. Another interest is her volunteer job at Virginia Mason where she helps the joint replacement patients recover. She and her husband raised their two children in the Mount Baker neighborhood and every Wednesday she takes care of their grandkids. That leaves Tuesdays for Mahjong and most Fridays for knitting and knitting, believe it or not, is her idea of perfect happiness. Presently, she’s finishing a cotton washcloth that her good friend, Linda Straley began before she died. She plays the piano but also wishes she could play any stringed instrument. Her bedroom showcases her collection of Botanical Prints and her love of flowers. The book on her bedside table is “Talking to Strangers” by Malcolm Gladwell. The U.W. Alumni Association honored her in 2017 with their invitation to serve as a Guardian of the Gonfalon. Guardians are chosen to walk at the commencement ceremony alongside the outstanding students who carry their school’s ‘gonfalon’, the banner that bears the school’s name and symbol.
As noted, Charyl Kay is a grandmother who does more than just show up. You ask, who Charyl Kay admires? Ghandi and Eleanor Roosevelt in the deceased category and amongst the living, Madelaine Albright, Hilary Clinton and Margy Heldring, because GAGV wouldn’t exist without Margy’s ‘what can we do’ attitude. Charyl Kay has that same ‘can do’ attitude and didn’t mince words when she told me that she’s ‘pissed off’ that the legislature has given so much attention to the vaping problem. She asks, “Why can’t they get that excited about gun safety and assault weapons?” Expect that to change with her interest and all of our work.