Helen Gell ran boutique with flair
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A few years ago, if you had walked into Helen's Of Course in downtown Seattle looking for a new outfit, you wouldn't have had long to wait for something just right. A personal assessment, in fact, was often almost instantaneous.
Seated in an easy chair at the front of the store, in a nice, plain dress and bedroom slippers, Helen Gell would look a customer up and down and call over her shoulder, "Show her the blue dress!" — or some variation. And it very likely was "you," those who knew her said.
"People would just quiver ... and then laugh. But they usually did what she said because she was so definite in her opinions, and she knew what she was talking about," said her daughter, Jeri Rice, current owner of the store once known as Helen's Of Course, in which Mrs. Gell was a partner.
Mrs. Gell, 82, a longtime fashion-store owner and fashion innovator in the Northwest, died Jan. 30 of complications of diabetes. She had lived for many years in Portland, where her flagship store was located, and lived for the past 2-1/2 years with her daughter and son-in-law, Greg Rice, on Mercer Island. For years, she often visited the Seattle store.
The fashion business came naturally to Mrs. Gell, who grew up working in her uncle Harry Bergman's Jacqueline's dress stores in LaGrande, Ore., and Lewiston, Idaho. She later worked in her uncle's store in Walla Walla while attending Whitman College.
While in Walla Walla, she met Harry Gell, a dashing young Air Force pilot from New York who immediately was taken by her obvious enthusiasm for life, her daughter said. They married.
"Mother somehow swept him away ... and they always really had a deep, deep love for one another," Rice said.
For a while, the couple lived in Las Vegas, where Harry Gell was stationed. Mrs. Gell worked in a clothing store. Later they moved to Portland, where Mrs. Gell and her cousin took over her uncle's store.
There she began to build her reputation, and when a storm blew away the store's "Jacqueline's" sign, she and her cousin replaced it with "Helen's Of Course."
Rice and co-workers said that besides her uncanny sense of fashion, Mrs. Gell was an astute and tough businesswoman.
Starting out in the 1940s when men dominated the industry, she demanded that she be treated well when buying clothing and bought lines that were enormously successful.
She also was known for starting the concept of the "trunk show," in which salesmen would show a whole new line of clothing in the store and customers were invited to order through the store.
"Her taste was impeccable. ... When she was on a buying trip, a salesman, for example, might say a dress would sell best in blue, and she would say, no, the red would, and she was always right," said Barbara Hanan, who has worked for 21 years in the downtown Seattle store, which two years ago was renamed Jeri Rice.
Mrs. Gell retired two years ago. In later years, she used a wheelchair because of diabetes, but that didn't stop her from running the business. Rice recalled buying trips during which she wheeled her mother down New York streets, past the potholes, in the rain and cold.
"Didn't matter, it was full steam ahead for Helen," said Rice, laughing.
Mrs. Gell also was known for her index finger. She punctuated her life with it — in gesturing to people during conversations, in directing her business.
"It was like power that came through her finger," Rice said. "When her finger went up, she had something to say."
Judy Obert, a customer who later worked in the Bellevue Helen's Of Course store, which closed two years ago, said that beneath Mrs. Gell's gruff exterior was a soft side. She gave to food banks and helped friends and others in need. "She was a very, very kind woman," Obert said.
Rice is Mrs. Gell's only child. Her husband, Harry, died in 1981. In addition to her daughter and son-in-law, Mrs. Gell is survived by her grandson, Harrison Rice.
Services have been held. Donations in memory of Mrs. Gell may be made to the Helen Gell Memorial Fund, University of Washington Center for Women and Democracy, Box 351380, Seattle, WA 98195.
Warren King can be reached at 206- 464-2247 or wking@seattletimes.com.