Helen Geary Quayle Collection

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Volume:: 33 black-and-white copy prints with corresponding 35 mm negatives; one original black-and-white print
Views include:: Jerome, Arizona: United Verde Copper Company mine and miners, school children, waterworks, railroads, and views of the town; Verde Valley: cliff-dwellings, Native Americans, Helen’s Dine and Dance, and the TAPCO building; Montezuma’s Well National Monument; portraits of Helen Geary Quayle
Biographic Note:: Helen Marie Geary Quayle lived in Jerome and the Verde Valley area for most of her long life. She was born in Denver, Colorado in 1894. Her mother, Della, was a clothing designer and dressmaker, with contracts in New York City and Chicago. Her father, Patrick Geary, was an Irish immigrant who came to the United States in 1865 at the age of seven, eventually moving west, first to Colorado and then to Arizona Territory. He became a general foreman for the United Verde Smelter in Jerome, although his family still lived in Colorado. In 1903, after a complicated pregnancy and three-month stay in the hospital, Della and their four children, Helen, Virginia, Edna, and Thomas, moved to Jerome as well.
: In 1907, both Virginia and Edna succumbed to a scarlet fever epidemic, dying within two days of each other. Helen and Thomas were the only two of ten children borne to the Gearys who survived into adulthood.
: As a child, Helen took piano and voice lessons. In 1910 she went to Tempe to study music at the Arizona Teachers College. The following year she went to Pasadena, California to continue her music studies. After her return to Jerome in 1912, she sang at church and later at the local picture show.
: In 1913, at age 18, Helen married a Mr. Myers, who owned a drug store bearing his name in Jerome. The couple moved to Texas. Five years later, she left her husband and returned to Jerome. Over the next two years, Helen and a producer put on shows throughout northern and central Arizona. With proceeds earned from the shows, Helen helped start the Verde Valley Red Cross (the Verde Valley Mining Company put up the other half needed). The money also helped to build the Verde Valley Catholic Church.
: In 1920, Helen married a music teacher, Lewis Johns. He took her to the Midwest, where the couple put on shows together. In 1929, while in Illinois, Helen received a telegram informing her that her mother was ill and to come home immediately. She did, and never returned to Johns and the Midwest. Della Geary died in 1930. Patrick Geary fell ill two years later, and Helen supported him throughout the Depression.
: Searching for a way to survive during the Depression, Helen had purchased her father’s land holdings between Clarkdale and Cottonwood, known as Geary Heights, in 1931 (today, Geary Heights consists of a short dirt road). In 1934, Helen married her third husband, a general foreman at the Jerome Mine named Quayle. The same year, she sold 120 acres of her land to the Verde Railroad in order to gain the capital needed to start a restaurant and dance club. Helen’s Dine and Dance featured Helen’s own singing and piano playing, along with bands that played for a commission at the door. She later leased out the Dine and Dance and and left the region for parts unknown.
: Helen ultimately returned to the Verde Valley to live out the rest of her life. She died in 1987 at the age of 93.

Cline Library
Special Collections and Archives Department
Northern Arizona University