Helen spent many a day wandering the wings of her and Jack's newly completed dream home, desperately trying to feel Jack's presence. The solace she was seeking was not to be found however, the red rock walls merely reflected her soft crying. The house was empty without Jack: a monument to what could have been, it had no heart or soul. The House of Apache Fires meant nothing to her without her beloved Jack.
How to move on, where to start......................................
There was not much to Sedona in 1950, the ranch was extremely isolated. Helen's new life was quite different than what she was used to. Her goal was to pull herself together and find some purpose other than Mrs. Jack Frye. Now there was time to walk and ride the many acres of beauty that was Smoke Trail Ranch. No more rushed flights to New York, or Paris. It was a time of reflection, therapeutic, it enabled her to cultivate an inner yearning. Helen was searching for something to fill her empty heart, spiritual truths and secrets that could not be found in the corruption of man's churches. Unfortunately, something was searching for Helen as well, it found her in the end, see Broken Promises and Opportunists.
Goodbye to Quiet Life
By Carle Hodge
Sedona Arizona December 12, 1957
Oak Creek Canyon, the backdrop for more than a score of reel-life dramas, is the locale for a real-life story almost as thunderous.
Growth is the plot. The reason is the same which lures horse-opera makers into this spellbinding pine-headed country of great, naked, red rocks.
Scenery is the magnet, scenery and friendly 4,200-foot-high climate.
Or as Helen Varner Frye, a settler of some 16 years duration (a tenure that makes her an old-timer by Sedona standards) puts it: "It's something you can't put into words. It's a feeling."
This feeling has caused 61 new residences to sprout this year alone. By the gauge of a Maryvale, such an increase might be piddling.
When Postmistress Frankie Tanner came down from Flagstaff in 1948, her little outpost of the government catered to less than 150 pioneers. Now there are nearly 2,000 more.
"I came here because it was nice and quiet," she says.
A boom must inevitably reduce charm and dilute the casual life.
"It's still nice," the postmistress smiles.
Change came to slowly Oak Creek about the same time as Frankie Tanner. Fannie Belle Gulick brought in a well at her ranch on Grasshopper Flat--around here, anything larger than a flowerbed is a ranch.
She proved it could be done. Theretofore Sedona had sucked its water from gurgling Oak Creek.
What a difference wells made can be seen in the flexing of trade.
That same year, Don Willard started building the town's first motel, the Canyon Portal. The rest of the business district consisted of two stores and one garage.
Sedona also acquired, uniquely perhaps for so small a populace a hard-topped airport, its own little theater group (the Stagecoach Players), artist colony and Alcoholics Anonymous chapter.
While Coffee Pot subdivision bloomed with modest dwellings of the pensioners who make up a majority of Sedona's added population, more dreamy souls were giving it architectural spice.
There is, for instance, the "Indian Ruin" which Jack and Helen Frye erected out toward Chavez Crossing--and the cuernavaca-like house built by writer-photographer Ed Ellinger above his hillside pool.
Unfortunately, the swelling settlement has its price tag. Motel keeper and Justice of the Peace Elmer ("The Law West of Oak Creek") Purtyman, a rare native, recalls with a lime expression the 320 acres his father peddled in 1920 for $8500.
Just one-half acre of those 320 sold three years ago for $8,000.
Besides, some early-comers consider that Sedona has become too homogenous and excessively peopled. Notable among them is Ellinger, who currently considers moving to the lonelier Patagonia area down south.
But the tide surges the other way. From the hum in land-hawking offices, it's obvious that most people agree with the realtor's sign on the edge of town.
The bill beams, "How beautiful can life be?"
Helen Varner Frye, (right), from left: George Babbitt Jr., Nick Duncan, (her ranch foreman) and Madeline Hunter Babbitt, as they stood near the Red Rock Loop Road on this chilly spring day. They were searching for a natural amphitheater for Canyon Kiva, the predecessor of the Sedona Arts Center. Mrs. Frye is a great lover of animals and is always accompanied by a couple of dogs.
Sedona, Arizona, December 5, 1968
Helen Frye, long time Sedona resident, celebrated her Birthday last Tuesday night in company of some of her best friends. They were Sally Hallermund, Fay Crenshaw, Pat Purchase and Elsie Riordan. The group went to the Oak Creek Owl for dinner and then to the King's Ransom for cocktails and birthday cake.
This little group surprised everybody by an unusual display of talent. The usually excellent entertainment of Art Woolley and Terry Fisher were augmented by Pat Purchase, who played piano and contributed a few songs, a few well-played piano numbers by Elsie Riordan, some torch songs rendered by Fay Crenshaw, and some Dixieland tunes played on the flute by Bert Powell. Sarah Winters joined the little group with her fine song styling.
All together Helen's Birthday Party turned into quite a little variety show.
We who've lived in the Canyon seventeen years, or more, and shared that doctorless period with earlier settlers, know and appreciate the fact that there is a doctor in the Canyon. We haven't forgotten the days when a member of our family could go down with a bad case of pneumonia, or the kitchen stove blow up and change your cook's face to a mass of burning flesh, and not a doctor to be had for love or money. All you could do was load the dangerously ill onto the bed of a pickup, and head for Cottonwood some twenty miles away, and hope your patient would survive the exposure. That was the best you could do unless you happened to know about Dr. Leo Schnur, some hundred and thirty three miles away from your home. He was the M.D. at the Grand Canyon Hospital, a human being with the meaning of his profession most predominate in his heart. If you could reach him by phone, Dr Leo would set a speed record between his office there and your country bedside, regardless of weather, high water, or muddy roads.
Sedona is happy and proud Dr. Leo and his wondrous assistant and registered nurse, who happens to be his wife and the mother of his children, now lives among us. His clinic and ability equals the best in the east and the west. We of Sedona are fortunate to have them.
Signed: Helen Varner Frye
(Note: Helen's hair color, very chic for the time period, is almost a platinum silver. In her Vanderbilt and TWA years, Helen fine tuned her innate sense of fashion and refinement.)
2003-2008
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Sedona Legend Helen Frye