Leona Christine Gabel was born on April 15, 1895 in Syracuse, New York to Jacob and Christina Gabel. She attended Syracuse University and graduated in 1915 with majors in History and German and a minor in French. Her senior year at Syracuse she was elected into the honorary scholarship societies of Kappa Phi Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa. Following graduation, Gabel worked for two years as a teacher at Canastota High School. In 1921-22, she was the Bryn Mawr Traveling Fellow at King's College and at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. In 1923, Gabel joined the faculty at Smith College as an instructor. In 1928, she earned her PhD from Bryn Mawr College after writing her thesis, The Benefit of Clergy in England during the Later Middle Ages, where she analyzed the relationship between secular courts and church courts relating to the death penalty. In 1929, Gabel was named Dean of the Class of 1932 at Smith College. Gabel reached full professorship in 1940, and was named the Dwight W. Morrow Professor of History in 1961, before eventually retiring from the Smith faculty in 1963. On August 25, 1980, she passed away at the age of 85 after being hospitalized for many weeks.