Arthur George Dunn Jr., 95; Tycoon's Son Led Reserved Life

Though he was born to a wealthy and well-known old Seattle family, Arthur George Dunn Jr., did not flaunt his station in life.

The son of a self-made tycoon who opened Seattle's first cannery and owned numerous downtown piers, Mr. Dunn told his future wife's family that he worked in a fish market.

"My grandmother was horrified," said his daughter, Charlanne Dunn-McGinnis of Bothell. "She was from a wealthy Australian family and she thought she was sending her daughter off to marry a pauper. He didn't tell her that he not only had worked in the fish market, but he owned the fish market and the whole pier."

"He probably just wanted somebody who loved him for his very own self, and the nice thing is that my mother did," Dunn-McGinnis said.

Mr. Dunn, who at 95 died Friday, Jan. 9, of kidney failure attributed to old age, was stationed in Australia as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II when he met his wife of 53 years, Sheileaes Ross Dunn.

He attended the University of Washington, becoming a lifelong Huskies fan, to earn his undergraduate and law degrees, and practiced law privately until his death. "I think he was proud that he never retired," his daughter said.

He represented the company that built the monorail as well as a number of family ventures including the Ainsworth and Dunn Wharf, Pier 70. He was a board member and adviser to the Maryhill Museum of Art and a 60-year member of the University Club.

Fair, slender and athletic, Mr. Dunn was something of a contradiction. On the one hand, he was shy, quiet, reserved and hard to read. His friends called him Arthur, never Art, and his two children called him Father. He wore a sports coat and tie every day of his life.

But he was also known for his dry sense of humor, his charisma and his love of Hershey's Almond bars.

"He was the life of the party. He had tons of charm and he was a fabulous dancer," his daughter said. She remembers diplomats, governors and legislators at parties her parents hosted, but she said her father was more of a homebody than a jet-setter.

An avid Republican who made the majority of his fortune through stock investments, Mr. Dunn grew up in a family that had a winter home and a summer home, but he drove a Dodge much of his adult life. He didn't give his children handouts because he wanted them to learn the value of work.

He caught spiders and set them free outside rather than kill them, and he gave in to his daughter's constant desire to rescue stray and wounded animals.

When he was a teenager he wanted to become a chemist. But he created an explosion in the basement, and - perhaps as a consequence - his father encouraged him to enter law.

Mr. Dunn, who felt he'd had a prosperous and lucky life, did not aspire to live to 100, his daughter said. When news of his imminent kidney failure came, he never even considered a transplant.

"I don't think he would have thought it fair to have a transplant at 95," Dunn-McGinnis said.

Mr. Dunn is survived by his wife, his daughter and his son Arthur Dunn III of Bothell; his sisters, Gertrude Dunn Jackson of Walla Walla and Dorothy Dunn Bayley of Seattle; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his brothers, Maurice Spencer Dunn and Edward Bernard Dunn.

Visitation will be 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at Bonney-Watson, 1732 Broadway, Seattle. There will be a vigil at 6 p.m. Friday at Bonney-Watson, followed by an Irish wake at 7:30 p.m. at the University Club. Funeral Mass will be Monday at 11 a.m. at St. Anne Church, 1411 First Ave. W., followed by interment at Calvary Cemetery. The family suggests memorials be made to Maryhill Museum of Art, 35 Maryhill Museum Drive, Goldendale, WA 98620; the E.B. Dunn Historic Garden Trust, P.O. Box 77126, Seattle, WA 98177; or the Northshore Community Performing Arts Center, P.O. Box 486, Bothell, WA 98041.