Elizabeth Gunn, author of 18 mystery novels, died in Helena Aug. 30, at age 95.
Born Elizabeth Anne McConnell in Chatfield, Minnesota, on June 10, 1927, to James and Susie McConnell, she met and married Phil Gunn one summer in Yellowstone National Park when they were both working their way through college. They owned and ran motels in Helena for more than 25 years. They raised two daughters.
Liz earned her pilot's license and flew herself and Phil around the state, across the U.S., and up the Alcan Highway to Alaska. She took up running, riding, skiing and skydiving. She completed one marathon and shorter races. She gave up jumping out of airplanes because a hard landing "ruined the ski season that year."
They bought the Main Motel at 910 N. Last Chance Gulch in 1956 and moved into the tiny apartment that would be their home for most of the next 25 years on Halloween night. They were greeted the next day by a housekeeper reporting she had found a body when she went to clean one of the rooms. The death was ruled to be from natural causes.
People are also reading…
They transformed their property from the original 37-room 1950's "motor court" into the 100-plus room Coach House Motor Inn Downtown. In the '60s, they added a bar known as Room 35 which later became Casino Jack's. They built blocks of rooms down the hill toward what is now Great Northern Boulevard. They absorbed a neighboring motel across Last Chance Gulch and, eventually, the gas station in between the two properties, which became a central laundry and maintenance facility. In the late 1970s they and a partner acquired another standalone hotel, bar and restaurant on Helena's east side and rebranded it as Coach House East.
Eventually she and Phil sold the motels and became "citizens of the world," living on a series of boats and RVs, traveling through Mexico, the Caribbean, and the U.S, scuba diving and snorkeling as they went. They weathered a hurricane by breaking into an old lighthouse on a tiny island. They moved to Barcelona, Spain, for a year and worked on their Spanish. Liz made time to finish her bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota, taking one final correspondence course and receiving her diploma at age 65.
She realized her lifelong dream of becoming an author. First she wrote travel articles that she sold to papers across the U.S., including The New York Times. Then she wrote her first murder mystery and saw it published when she was 70. Having settled in Tucson, Arizona, with Phil, she enjoyed a successful 20-plus-year career as an author. Her last two novels were published when she was in her 90s and one of her series was reissued by a new publisher in 2021.
Seven of her books were set in Tucson, 10 in Minnesota, and one in Montana. Titles in the Jake Hines and Sarah Burke mystery series include "Cool in Tucson," "Burning Meredith" and "Eleven Little Piggies."
Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times described Liz’s police procedurals as “precision-tooled” while Publishers Weekly said, "Outstanding may be an understatement." But for Elizabeth, the highest praise came from the cops, firefighters, and even FBI and DEA agents who would sometimes come up to her after an appearance at a bookstore, library or festival and say, simply, "You got it right."
When Phil got cancer, Liz tended him for two years until he died in their Tucson home in 2011. Then she found new interests, took up yoga, and kept writing. She suffered a broken hip earlier this year, left Tucson, and died in Helena.
She is survived by daughters, Susan Gunn of Helena, and Anne Gunn (Mark Rapf) of Sheridan, Wyoming, and grandchildren, Elizabeth Rapf, Rebecca Rapf and Leslie Gunn. She was cremated. A family memorial service is still being planned.
Read more about her at https://legcy.co/3fjcu69.