When you ask people why they chose to live in Seal Beach, most often they reply that it is the “quaintness” and the “small town” atmosphere that drew them here. If you dig deeper, what you will find is that the qualities we all love about living here are fostered and nurtured by some of the most amazing people, all who are our neighbors, if not in the exact sense of the word, in spirit.
This series is intended to introduce you, the reader, to some of our amazing neighbors you should know if you don’t already. They are the souls who give of themselves so that our community and the lives of those around them are better for it. They are truly, Unsung Heroes. Do you have a neighbor we should know? Please send them to me at: EBETHL@hotmail.com.
Every day, in so many ways, we get up and look around us at what we perceive to be the norm and take for granted that things may not always have been as they are today. We all owe some very dedicated people a lot of thanks for these things. This applies most certainly to this week’s Neighbor to Know, Gayle Knapp.
Gayle’s amazing journey began in the Midwest, where she was born in Chicago, moved to Ohio and ultimately attended college at Bowling Green State University. While at Bowling Green, not only did she major in Elementary teaching, but competed in Synchronized Swimming as well. She told me how upon graduating in 1958, the schools were flooded with recruiters from California looking to bring as many good, qualified teachers to the booming California economy. So, what was a girl to do? Say yes, and make sure your best friends also got offers, get in a car and head west.
What makes it all the more crazy is that the location of her offer, to teach in Garden Grove was so obscure at the time, the Auto Club did not even have mapped information to get them there, and advised them to head towards Anaheim and they would find it.
Using a Triptik (do we all remember these wonderful guides?) she and two others set across country. They had also been advised that once they got here, the “best place” for teachers was either Belmont Shore or Balboa. She found a friend through a phone book who was in Belmont Shore at the time, and they all decided to settle there.
Now, you have to remember there were no 405, 22 or 605 freeways, so the daily journey to Garden Grove took surface streets to get to and a long time. But she forged on, working for over eight years in the Garden Grove School District. During this time, she met her husband Mike, who was also a teacher and coach in the La Mirada School District and who also lived at the shore. They were married in 1961 continuing to live in Belmont Shore where they welcomed first son Greg in 1963. With the family growing and space shrinking, they made the move to Seal Beach in 1965, bought the house on Sandpiper where Gayle remains today and welcomed their second son Jake in 1965.
It was shortly after Jake’s birth that Gayle gave up her full time teaching job to stay home with her boys. However, “stay at home” had a completely different meaning to Gayle. In 1966 she started by helping to create a co-op nursery school located in the Zoeter School gym (Zoeter did K-2nd grade) which still exists today as Sun-N-Fun Play Group.
When her sons were both well into grade school, she went to work part-time for the Press Telegram, where she built a role and career that would last her over 30 years. She had always had a love for journalism, serving as the paper’s leader for the program “Newspaper In Education” (NIE), which works with local schools, teaching and developing curriculum and ways to use newspaper information in the classroom.
She also has a love for the arts, and in 1970 began working with the Junior Programs of Long Beach, an organization that brought live theater six times per year to Lakewood High School on Saturday mornings. The group worked to bring local elementary children in to experience live theatre, and would help educate them on the experience. She was known as “The Play Lady” because she would dress in costume and greet the children upon arrival, talk with them and begin telling them about what they were going to experience. I could tell by the light in Gayle’s eyes as she talked of this program just how much it meant to her.
But these things pale in comparison to the biggest gift Gayle has given all of us.
In 1965, the Division of Highways notified the Seal Beach Naval Weapons station that it intended to put a highway straight through their property. This highway would have cut across and down as far as PCH and would have been a continuation of the 605 as we know it today. At the time, Gayle was serving as the Ecology Liaison for the Seal Beach Jr. Women’s Club. The Commander of the base contacted them to engage them in fighting to keep the freeway out. And so it began.
The detail is arduous and complicated as you can imagine when one is fighting for not only federal land, but to establish that there is cause to keep that land protected. The fight to stop the development and get the wetlands preserved took over seven years of door knocking, community rallying, and letter writing to the state legislature and then to Congress. But that is what Gayle and many others did and battled for which resulted ultimately in the priceless gem we know today as the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. It was finally determined and signed in 1972 that our wetlands were an invaluable and irreplaceable nesting ground for several endangered species as well as a prime migratory stop for millions of birds and worthy of preservation. And we all have Gayle and others who fought with her for this beautiful piece of tranquility and life. It did not just happen and it would not have happened if the “Gayles” of our community had not stepped up to make it happen. You would instead be listening to the roar of the freeway as it passed by your back door.
If you have never gone to visit the wetlands, I encourage you all to make a reservation and visit this treasure and learn just how significant it is to our future. It is after all, right in your backyard.
Gayle asked me to keep her story short, but it is so hard not to share it all with the readers. She has served on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing for more than eight years.
She helped found the Seal Beach Autumn Run in 1981 in memory of her mother who passed away from cancer.
The fall run raised money for cancer for many years before the red tape of putting it on made it too hard to continue.
She remains committed to her love of reading through a book club of over 40 years and she continues with volunteer work at the Sun Newspaper every week to help with proofing “just to keep busy.” Really?
She has never lost her love for the ocean and the Hill neighborhood that she found so many years ago. She walks frequently down to Main Street.
She lost Mike several years ago, and now spends as much time with her sons and grandchildren as she can. What luck it was that she was pointed towards Belmont Shore all those years ago, that she stayed and then found her way to Seal Beach. I think the luck was all ours.
