Jesse Petrich was a down-to-earth, seafaring man

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When he wasn't at sea, he was making waves on land. That was Jesse Petrich — a stocky, salty, blue-collar man known for his firm handshake and even stronger convictions.

"He looked and acted the part of a retired sea captain," said longtime friend John Fox. "The only thing he lacked was the parrot on his shoulder."

Mr. Petrich spent the later years of his life near the water, living in an apartment overlooking the Pike Place Market. He was known to set up a card table in the Market and register people to vote. Always outspoken, and not always politically correct, Mr. Petrich fought the gentrification of downtown Seattle, particularly the waterfront, and was a passionate advocate of the preservation of low-income housing.

"I knew him as one of the downtown dwellers," said Joe Martin, a social worker and co-founder of the Pike Market Medical Clinic. "He was part of the Market community and part of the Pike Market scene."

At 94, Mr. Petrich was among the last of the Wobblies, the nickname given to members of the radical labor group Industrial Workers of the World. He died Feb. 12.

Mr. Petrich was born in Tacoma on March 21, 1907, making him one month older than the Pike Place Market. He left high school to work on fishing boats, first in Puget Sound and then in Alaska. While ashore, he became a Wobbly as a teenager, working in logging camps in Grays Harbor County.

"He was a hard-working man who lived a very tough life," Martin said. "He was very smart and extraordinarily strong and muscular for a man of his age. You could tell when he shook your hand."

Mr. Petrich was active in the Western Washington Farm Foresters Association in the late 1950s. In the mid-1960s he sailed to Vietnam, where he operated a tugboat for Alaska Barge and Transport.

He retired from the sea in 1972, then started a marine-consulting business with his son, calling himself "Captain Jesse Petrich." His name was listed that way in the phone book as well.

"He was like this classic old sailor," Martin said. "He would talk about his days as the captain of the Wawona. He told me he had actually commandeered that vessel," something Martin never verified.

The famous schooner is now docked at South Lake Union.

Though he became stooped in stature and walked with a cane in his later years, Mr. Petrich never lost his fighting spirit.

"He maintained a healthy, vigorous activism," said Fox, who met Mr. Petrich through his involvement in the Seattle Displacement Coalition. "He was a staunch advocate, a never-say-die person. He is the kind of person I want to emulate as I grow older."

Mr. Petrich is survived by two sons, William of Ketchikan, Alaska, and Kurt of Anacortes, and one daughter, Henriette of Arlington. A memorial service may be announced later.

Pam Sitt can be reached at 206- 464-2376 or psitt@seattletimes.com.