{"id":266,"date":"2011-09-09T18:35:55","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T18:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/?p=266"},"modified":"2022-02-03T13:51:49","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T21:51:49","slug":"louise-gabriel-a-santa-monica-pillar-with-passion-for-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/press-releases\/louise-gabriel-a-santa-monica-pillar-with-passion-for-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Louise Gabriel: A Santa Monica Pillar With Passion For History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Lynne Bronstein\"Louise<\/a>
\nMirror Contributor<\/p>\n

Of the people who can deservedly be called pillars of the Santa Monica community, Louise Gabriel is the very soul of Santa Monica. Her community involvements span 40 years and include membership on boards ranging from the Salvation Army to Santa Monica Hospital, Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, Santa Monica College Advisory Board, and the Santa Monica Historical Society. She chaired the city\u2019s 110th year birthday celebration, helped found the Historical Society, founded the Santa Monica History Museum, and writes articles on behalf of the Historical Society. She has won numerous awards and recognitions of service and has authored two books about Santa Monica, \u201cEarly Santa Monica\u201d published in 2009, and \u201cSanta Monica 1950-2010\u201d published this year, both by Arcadia Press.<\/p>\n

As Gabriel says \u201cThere is so much to tell.\u201d Recently at the History Museum, which occupies space attached to the main branch of the Santa Monica Library, Gabriel told The Mirror<\/em> about the Historical Society and how she founded and nurtured the History Museum into what it is today.<\/p>\n

With her late husband, Bob Gabriel of ISU Bob Gabriel Co. Insurance, Louise Gabriel came to California 60 years ago. \u201cWe loved Santa Monica,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In 1975, Louise Gabriel, who was then chair of the Women\u2019s Counsel of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, served on the Historical Activities Committee for the Centennial Celebration. This was when she and some others founded the Historical Society with former mayor Clo Hoover as its first president. Gabriel\u2019s committee planned the centennial exhibit at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were over a hundred volunteers and I made costumes for them at Santa Monica College,\u201d said Gabriel. She also oversaw the fitting of a gown for May Sutton Bundy, the first woman to win the tennis championship at Wimbledon, who rode in the Pasadena Tournament of Roses sitting atop a Santa Monica 100th Birthday cake float.<\/p>\n

During the next 10 years, the fledgling Historical Society held events, such as essay and art contests in the local schools, while Gabriel collected historical objects and memorabilia. \u201cThe collection was stored in a rental house that Bob and I owned,\u201d Gabriel explained. \u201cI thought it was time to share it with the public.\u201d She discussed it with her colleagues who loved the idea, but were unable to help \u201cbecause they were all employed full time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louise Gabriel had such passion for her idea of a museum that she resigned from several of the boards she had been serving on in order to have time to work on the search for a location\u2013and funding. She kept adding to the collection while Bob Gabriel, the official co-founder with his wife, looked for funding sources. For three years they struggled, with only $20,000 in the Society\u2019s treasury to work with.<\/p>\n

When they were finally able to create the History Museum in 1988, Gabriel recalls \u201cThe first location was in the old Sponberg Department Store\u201d (on the former Third Street Mall, now the Promenade). It wasn\u2019t big enough and the Museum soon was moved to an industrial building at 20th Street and Colorado Avenue. This site became the home for the Sony complex. Another location was found in a storefront on the Promenade again. But by the time they were settled in, \u201cThe rent was increased to three times what it had been. We couldn\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the Gabriels were able to find a new location with the old Family Service Building on Euclid Street. For 20 years this building housed the History Museum and its growing collection. \u201cIt was so wonderful to us. They kept the rent affordable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we were there, the city informed us that they would give us space in the new library. We had a capital campaign to raise funds. My husband chaired and raised a million and a half dollars. We were a few thousand short so we cut back on some of the things we had planned.\u201d The Santa Monica History Museum opened in October 2010.<\/p>\n

Visitors to the Museum will find that it contains several sections: a gallery for changing exhibits, and sections devoted to specific themes such as marine life artifacts, the role of airplanes in the city, the local press (an exhibit about the Santa Monica Outlook <\/em>newspaper that folded in 1998), and activities on the beach. There is an antique player piano and items of antique furniture. Docent tours are available for schools.<\/p>\n

Gabriel\u2019s frequent articles about Santa Monica history for local publications led to the writing of her two books. \u201cWe were contacted by Arcadia-they do this kind of publishing about cities, doing a book for each city,\u201d Gabriel said. It took her about a year and a half to write and assemble each book.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly Santa Monica\u201d documents the city\u2019s development and early years through historic photographs. This year\u2019s companion book \u201cSanta Monica 1950-2010\u201d is about \u201cwhat Santa Monica is,\u201d featuring more photos and commentary, divided into sections on sights to see, dining around town, community pillars, celebrities, organizations, businesses, hotels, churches, and sights and sites of sheer beauty. \u201cI tried to put things in there that people did not know about,\u201d said Gabriel.<\/p>\n

Louise Gabriel has worked tirelessly on the History Museum but her work is hardly done. \u201cWe\u2019re dependent on the community for support.\u201d The Museum receives no funding from the city and donations are always welcome but \u201cwe always need loads of volunteers\u201d for tasks such as cataloguing and research.<\/p>\n

Gabriel also wanted people to know that the Santa Monica History Museum has \u201cthe biggest collection of local history of any museum.\u201d She noted that because of its location adjacent to the library, many people have not noticed it yet and more people need to know that it is there\u2014for them. \u201cThis is a museum for the community–for the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Louise Gabriel\u2019s books may be purchased at the Santa Monica History Museum at 1350 Seventh Street, open Tuesday and Thursday from 12 p.m. to 8p.m. and Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

To receive an order form, contact Mary Pat Cooney at the museum, phone 310.395.2290. All proceeds go to benefit the museum.<\/p>\n

Contact Lynne Bronstein
\nlynne@smmirror.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Lynne Bronstein Mirror Contributor Of the people who can deservedly be called pillars of the Santa Monica community, Louise Gabriel is the very soul of Santa Monica. Her community involvements span 40 years and include membership on boards ranging from the Salvation Army to Santa Monica Hospital, Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, Santa Monica […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_crdt_document":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28044,"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/28044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santamonicahistory.org\/bkp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}