When Gayle Martin returned to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1997 to further her career in art her plans quickly got sidetracked when she learned of the plans to demolish the Cine Capri, an old and revered movie theater in town. Her father, W. E. "Bill" Homes, Jr., President and CEO of Homes & Son Construction Company, was the contractor who had built the landmark structure in 1966. A campaign was begun to save the theater, but it was not to be.
The theater was razed in 1998, just weeks after her father passed away. The whole experience, however, ignited within Gayle a passion for history and more importantly, for keeping history alive. She commissioned an architectural model of the Cine Capri in her father's memory and gifted it to the Arizona Historical Society.
A second-generation Phoenix native, Gayle graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in art and then pursued postgraduate studies at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. Following the devastating earthquake in 1989 she moved to Colorado where she worked for several years as a graphic designer and illustrator, winning numerous prestigious awards.
After she made the move back to Phoenix and was inspired by the efforts to preserve her father's theater she discovered a new outlet for her talents.
Gayle's speaking career began in 2001 when she debuted the historical character Anna Ferguson, WWII Housewife and Defense Worker, a storytelling program originally created for the Amazing Arizonans outreach program with the Arizona Historical Society Museum. With the success of "Anna," and at the suggestion of her peers, Gayle created a second historical character, Elizabeth St. Claire, the Tombstone Storyteller.
Since
2002, Gayle has been a featured performer with the Arizona Living
History Programs LLC, an organization of her own creation. She has taken
audiences on "time travel trips" by performing as historic characters,
dressed in period costumes. "Anna" and "Elizabeth" have been
featured at dozens of events, and have been
performed at schools, universities, association meetings, conventions
and museums throughout Arizona. Through her reenactments, Gayle has
inspired children and adults alike with her characters' ability to face
challenges with dignity during uncertain times.
Gayle has always had a passion for writing, and was inspired by her historic personas. In 2005 she wrote and self-published her first book, Anna's Kitchen: a Compilation of WWII Ration Recipes That You Can Create in Your Kitchen Today. Her first published novel, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral: Luke and Jenny Visit Tombstone, was released in 2006, followed by the second book in the series, Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War: a Luke and Jenny Adventure, in 2007. The third book in the series, Riding with the James Gang, will be released in the fall of 2009. Gayle has begun the early work of her fourth Luke and Jenny novel, The Mystery of the Lost Dutchman Mine. A new, updated version of Anna's Kitchen, re-titled Rosie's Riveting Recipes: Cooking on the Home Front Line, is due out in the spring of 2010.
Photo by Danielle Jarrett
Gayle was a featured author at the 2007 Hollywood Book Festival in Hollywood, California, where her book Gunfight at the O.K. Corral: Luke and Jenny Visit Tombstone was an Honorable Mention. Another book, Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War: a Luke and Jenny Adventure, was named as a Finalist in the 2007 Indie Book Awards of Excellence.
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