Helene Gabel Ryan – 1918 – 2009

Paul Dorpat let us know that Wallingford mourns the passing of a long-time resident, community activist, bicyclist and writer, Helene Gabel Ryan, and forwarded along this obituary written by friend and public historian Gerald Elfendahl.

Helene Gabel Ryan, 91, writer, activist and bicyclist died Tues., Dec. 15 surrounded by the love of her family.

Born May 20, 1918, in Everett, WA, to Frank and Mabel Anthes Gabel, the family moved to Seattle in 1924. Helene attended Leschi Elementary School developing a passion for writing since age 10. She graduated from Garfield HS in 1935. After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology at the University of Washington in 1940 and attending Business College, she worked Civil Service jobs.

An interest in NW history and Japan was kindled by her grandfather, Jacob Anthes, a Langley, Washington, pioneer who toured the Far East in 1914. Anthes’ Everett home hosted Demolay meetings attended by Henry M. Jackson, who became U.S. Senator.

In 1935, Helene’s parents built a cabin overlooking Puget Sound at Indianola of which Helene had fond memories.

Helen married John L. Ryan in 1942 and “followed him to all corners of the country” while he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WW II. After the war, they had two sons, Jon and Kim. In 1953, they made their home in Wallingford, where Helene and John served for a decade on the Community Council.
From 1963 to 1966, Helene was secretary to the U.W. Dean of Women. She was inspired there by her friend, Anne Reeploeg Fisher’s EXILE OF A RACE, (1965) documenting the WW II uprooting of Japanese Americans. She also worked for Diesel Oil Sales Co.
After taking sons to school, she rode her three-speed Raleigh Gazelle bicycle to work. She began bicycling in the 1920’s, became an early member of the PNW Cycling Association, and continued pedaling into her late 70’s.

Ryan volunteered at the Woodland Park Zoo as docent and even baby sat infant gorillas; and for 20 years at the Well Mind Association helping the mentally ill – “people sensitive to toxins in food, those with fatigue syndromes, and such.”
Helene’s passion for writing began in 1928. She kept diaries during the 1930s and 1940s, while traveling with her husband during WW II; and while raising children.
U.W. creative writing classes helped polish her art, as did Fictioneers, a writing club she described as “a wonderfully supportive, caring bunch of writers with no jealousy.” It was founded in 1947 by Wilbur Culver, writing teacher. Helene was a member from 1957 until it disbanded in 2000.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Helene joined campaigns to save Pike Place Market and stop the Vietnam war.

She studied writing with Zola Helen Ross and had articles, poems, histories and short stories published – “Joy and Torment” (1983), “Leschi Diary” and “Riverside Remembers”. Then Zola encouraged her to write a book instead of short stories.

Helene recalled the WW II uprooting of Japanese neighbors. She remembered her strong internal reaction to it. She began writing an historic novel set in Seattle during the first three years of the war. From her journals, extensive research and a decade of service with the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple’s historic archives committee, her book grew slowly over eighteen years. Long before the National Park Service made it an historic monument, Helene and John searched for and found Camp Minidoka in south Idaho, where Seattle residents of Japanese ancestry were interned during WW II.

Helene was encouraged in these later years by her association with the Seattle Branch of the National League of American Pen Women and by her husband, John. To see the book finished was his dream, too. They’d been married 61 years when he passed away “the day the U.S. went to war with Iraq” in March, 2003. In December, 2005, Helene Gabel Ryan, who always wanted to be a “Writer,” was 87 when her debut novel was published – HAKUJIN.

“Many respected works of American literature are from authors who wrote only one book!” she would say, smiling, when asked what her next book would be.

Rich in PNW women’s and Japanese American history, HAKUJIN has universal appeal and has found readers in schools, libraries and book clubs on both coasts and overseas. It is in its second edition and been translated into Japanese.

Helene Gabel Ryan was loving mother to her sons, Jon (Lynda) Ryan, Sand Point, ID, and Kim, Seattle; beloved grandmother to John Tiffany, Tonya (Jason) Taft, Brandon & Katyanna; and great-grand mother to Brennan Taft and Kira Helene Taft.