Perry readers are long familiar with the writings of Ray Harden, who has been delighting them with his nature stories for decades. Now he has published his memoir, “My Life as a Collage,” and this is sure to bring a new pleasure to the palates of Perry readers.
Harden taught seventh and eighth grade science at the Perry Junior High School from 1970 to 1998, and he also made community outreach a big part of his professional life, from working with students in church groups and 4-H groups and Scouts groups to writing stories about the plants and animals that surround us here in central Iowa.
Harden retired in 1998, one year after his wife, Margaret Harden, retired after 30 years of counseling at the Perry High School. With their three adult children gone from home, the Hardens left home, too, starting a series of travels that eventually took them to nearly 60 countries on five continents, including sneaking across the Mekong River into Laos from Vietnam and crossing the border on foot from Siam to Burma.
Their wide travels produced an abundance of materials suitable for presentations, and Harden easily turned his gift as a classroom lecturer into a similar skill for delivering nature and travel “talks,” with venues ranging from libraries and churches to Sierra Clubs and Isaak Walton Leagues.
Along with the presentations, retirement also offered Harden a chance to try his hand at nature writing, and he found a ready outlet in the pages of the Perry Chief, where hundreds of his columns have appeared since the late 1990s.
During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 and 2021, Harden started working on a book about Iowa ecology, but he changed direction after hearing a fellow member of the Perry Lions Club mention working on a memoir.
“I realized that what I really wanted to tell were stories about my life growing up in St. Louis, about my ancestors and my personal adventures,” Harden said. “I wanted to pass those stories on to my posterity. I wanted my grandchildren to know that I had a life full of interesting travels and adventures.”
Harden transitioned naturally from reflecting on his own personal history to inquiring into his family’s history, and he unearthed some colorful characters in the course of his researches, such as one ancestral gambler who was murdered on an Ohio riverboat, another who was a slaveholder before the Civil War and another who buried four husbands, including one who sold sewing machines and died of a hog bite and another who was an insurance agent and died of malaria.
“My paternal great-grandmother, Josie Willis, and her daughter, Mamie Harden, were great storytellers,” Harden said. “They told me many stories about the history of my ancestors based on family oral history.” They also had a cache of photographs from the late 1800s and family Bibles with important names and dates.
Harden’s aptly named book, “My Life as a Collage,” comprises his personal and family history as well as Iowa-centered nature writings and travelogues written with a naturalist’s eye. The long look backward, personally and generationally, gave Harden a chance to review more than 80 years and renew many old acquaintances along the way.
“I got to relive many of the adventures Margaret and I had, and we enjoyed talking about them and reliving the story together,” Harden said. “I also enjoyed seeing photos of many of my friends who have passed on, Dick Ehlers and Roger Emmert especially. I saw photos of us on our many camping, canoeing and hiking trips.”
Interested readers can get the book from Harden directly at hardenrj@gmail.com or find it at the Perry Public Library.
