1928 – 2022
David Eugene Sergent died peacefully on Good Friday surrounded by his wife, children and grandchildren.
Born in 1928 in Missoula, Montana to Leonard and Mary Sergent on the eve of the Great Depression, David and his four siblings grew up in impoverished financial circumstances, but in a family rich in love and loyalty. He held great admiration for his mother who single-handedly raised her five children after losing her husband, Leonard, in a farming accident in 1932. Determined to spare her children the hardships she had experienced as a child in an orphanage, she worked 12-hour days washing laundry for the nuns of St. Ignatius Mission. “Even though we had nothing, we had everything that mattered,” David often fondly recalled. Those years growing up in St. Ignatius instilled life lessons that proved seminal in David’s life: Your word is your bond, the Lord never throws more at you than you can handle, and there’s little in life that can’t be solved with hard work and abiding faith.
David’s enduring love of the sea began with his Puget Sound excursions as a Sea Scout at 15. His three-month stint as a Merchant Marine Seaman on the USS Cavanaugh at 16 and his summers during college as a quartermaster on Merchant Marine troop transport ships sealed the lifelong affair. At 17, he joined the Marine Corps, but with the armistice newly signed, he was stationed at an Army explosives depot in Hawthorne, Nevada, where his most dangerous encounters were racing back to the barracks at 100 mph to arrive in time for reveille after a night of drinking and dancing.
Life took on a more sedate pace when, in 1954, he married the love of his life and partner of almost seven decades, Mary Erlene Wolfe. Seven children over the course of the next 11 years kept them both busy full time. Even though David was often on the road with his job as an industrial engineer for Texaco, he somehow found time to organize camping and boating trips all over the Pacific Northwest with all seven children in tow. After retirement, David and Mary found great joy in traveling, sailing their beloved sailboat, Thumper, visiting their children both at home and abroad, and enjoying the peace and serenity of “Sursum Corda,” their woodland home of over 50 years. One of David’s great pleasures was teaching a weekly class on lubrication engineering right up until his death at 93.
David was a devoted grandfather. Even though his grandchildren facetiously referred to their summer visits to Jacksonville as POG or “Prisoner of Grandpa” camp and complained bitterly of the pace set by their 75-year-old grandfather, they now relish those summers spent honing their forestry and auto repair skills under his watchful tutelage.
Like his childhood, David’s life was full of challenges: his son Michael’s motorcycle accident at 18 that left him a quadriplegic, his own muscular dystrophy that confined him to a wheelchair for the last 10 years of his life, several bouts of cancer and his “alphabet of ailments” as he used to call them. The foundation that his mother laid in his youth with her selfless dedication and unshakeable faith served him well in surmounting all that life threw at him. His family and friends will remember him as a man of fierce loyalty, tireless work ethic, and irrepressible humor who took great pride in the accomplishments of his children and grandchildren.
David was preceded in death by his parents, four siblings and son, Michael. He is survived by his wife, Mary, his six remaining children, 13 grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren, and a host of incredible caregivers who immeasurably brightened his last four years. A funeral mass will be celebrated in May, followed by a private graveside service.