Archives West Finding Aid

Ottilie Lou (Kepner) Markholt was a white, female labor unionist, labor historian, and author who spent most of her life in Tacoma, Washington. She was born on February 25, 1916 to parents Alfred Silverthorne Kepner and Clara Reissennweber Kepner in Candle, Alaska. Her family moved first to Chicago in 1919 and then to West Seattle in 1921 where Ottilie spent the remainder of her childhood and adolescence. She attended West Seattle High School, working on the school newspaper, and graduated in 1933 as class Valedictorian.

After high school, Ottilie attended the University of Washington from 1933-1935. It was in college that she became active in leftist political organizing, joining the University Unit of the Young Communist League in 1935. Ottilie did not graduate college, leaving, according to the Preface of her book Maritime Solidarity, “to become a full-time revolutionary.” It was through the Young Communist League that she met her first husband, Bob (Robert) Dombroff. They married on December 7, 1935. Bob was also active in leftist organizing and the labor movement when they met. They were both members of the Communist Party but dropped out in 1936.

Bob Dombroff was a sailor and an active member of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific as well as the Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast (MFPC), a short-lived organization founded in 1935 to build solidarity amongst the different labor unions representing maritime workers. During this time, Ottilie helped form the Seattle Women’s Maritime Auxiliary of the MFPC, compiled the Union Labels for Union Men booklet in 1937, and helped recruit author and activist Ralph Chaplin, Jr. to work as Editor of the MFPC’s newspaper, the Voice of the Federation. Both Ottilie and Bob were openly critical of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) President, Harry Bridges.

Bob and Ottilie had two sons, Bob and Lee. Bob was born in 1937 and Lee in 1939. After Bob Dombroff and Ottilie divorced in 1941, she relocated to Tacoma with her sons and temporarily worked a unionized waitressing job. She began working for the Tacoma Metal Trades Council in 1943 where she joined the Office Employees International Union Local 20360 which later became the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 23. Ottilie worked for OPEIU Local 23 as Office Secretary beginning in 1949 until her retirement in 1981. She was also actively involved in the union itself, including attending the 1962 international convention as delegate and serving as Secretary-Treasurer in the 1960s.

Ottilie met her second husband, Halvor Markholt through Local 23. He worked as a timekeeper at the shipyards. They married in 1943, and Ottilie as well as her sons assumed the last name of Markholt. The family moved to a farm south of Tacoma in 1945. Ottilie and Halvor divorced in 1953.

Ottilie’s Research & Writing

Ottilie spent many years researching and writing scholarly articles and manuscripts on a variety of topics, primarily related to the labor movement. Her published book Maritime Solidarity: Pacific Coast Unionism 1929-1938 emerged from expanded research beginning with her work on the Sailors' Union of the Pacific manuscript, completed in 1942 and originally credited solely to co-author Peter B. Gill. Ottilie conducted extensive research and worked on multiple drafts of Maritime Solidarity for many decades, including versions detailing earlier time periods. Ralph Chaplin, Jr. was an influence in encouraging her to resume research and writing in the 1950s, and labor historian Archie Green encouraged her to publish it in the early 1990s. After rejection from a number of publishers, the Pacific Coast Maritime History Committee was formed, initially as a part of the Pierce County Central Labor Council and composed of members of the labor community, to coordinate the publishing. Through community donations, including contributions from labor unions, enough money was raised to publish the book in 1998.

In addition to Maritime Solidarity, she researched and wrote several other manuscripts, including The Concern of All: Tacoma Working People and Their Unions, 1883-1895, sponsored by the Pierce County Central Labor Council in the 1980s; a biography of her parents called Alaska Homestead, completed in 1947; Nome, Alaska’s Early Union Movement on early union organizing in Nome; and her autobiography, Against the Current, completed around 2001. She also assisted others in their research, including Ronald (Ron) Magden and A.D. Martinson for their 1982 publication, The working waterfront: the story of Tacoma's ships and men as well as Captain Harold Huycke in the early 2000s in writing a history of ILWU Local 90 in San Francisco, California.

Additionally, Ottilie wrote for a variety of local publications during her lifetime, including the Tacoma Labor Advocate when Ralph Chaplin was Editor in the 1940s. She was also Editor of the Tacoma NAACP newsletter in the early 1960s and the Pierce County Central Labor Council Education Committee’s newsletter, The Labor Educator, which ran from 1985 to 1997.

Activism and Organizational Involvement

Ottilie was active in labor, civil rights, and social justice organizing, participating in a variety of organizations throughout her lifetime. In addition to her involvement in the Communist Party and OPEIU Local 23, she organized against “Right to Work” Initiatives 198 and 202 in Washington State during the 1950s. In 1964, Ottilie traveled to Buffalo, New York for research where she ended up volunteering in the office of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). She later joined the Tacoma-Olympia Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1971 and served as Branch Secretary for a number of years.

She was also actively involved in promoting and educating the community on the importance of labor history, including serving as the first Chair of the Pierce County Central Labor Council’s Education Committee and coordinating research and writing for a pictorial history exhibit and the publication of To Live in Dignity as a part of the Washington State centennial celebrations in 1989. Along with her son Bob who was teaching labor studies courses at the Tacoma Community College, Ottilie made efforts to integrate labor history education into community college curriculum in the 1970s and 80s. She was also a founding member of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association (PNLHA), joining in 1979 and serving as Vice President for several years in the 1990s as well as attending and presenting papers at the organization’s annual meeting.

End of Life

Ottilie passed away on November 25, 2004 in Tacoma, Washington. A memorial was held on January 30, 2005 at the Local 23 hall of the ILWU in Fife, Washington.

Resources Consulted:

In addition to information derived from the collection itself, including a timeline of Markholt’s life and a memorial program located in SERIES 5, Subseries A: Family Papers, resources consulted include the Preface of her book Maritime Solidarity: Pacific Coast Unionism, her autobiography Against the Current, and an obituary published in the Seattle Times in 2004.