An Interview with Jim Thayer-Hart
by Jennifer Parker
I hope you receive as much from reading my interviews as I do from meeting and hearing people’s stories. I didn’t know Jim Thayer-Hart and felt enriched to learn about his life and what he holds dear.
What would you like to share with the community about your life?
Jim grew up in the small town of Lambertville, Michigan near Toledo, Ohio. “I called it the armpit of Lake Erie. Lots of heavy industry, lots of support for the auto industry. I stayed there through high school. My dream at that time was to go out west and see the Rocky Mountains. My father was self-employed, and he wanted us to see and experience the country.” They went to a large number of national parks and monuments as a family.
“After high school, I was attending a community college but had no ambition for learning. At the end of the first year, my father and I decided to take a canoe trip into Canada together. It ended in a tragedy; three days out the canoe capsized when they hit a rapid and my father drowned.” Jim was 18 and in the middle of the wild. He spent half a day looking for his father in the water but couldn’t find him.
Jim knew he had to get to a railroad town called Alsas twenty miles away, so he started paddling. He wanted to get through the Shoots, a small logging town, before it was dark. When he arrived, a man had been preparing a cabin for the summer season and was ready to leave when he got there. He feels some divine intervention occurred because if he had been five minutes later, he wouldn’t have gotten out of there as easily. The man took him the rest of the way to Alsas.
They radioed the police in Follette, and they put him on a train. His family was contacted, and they sent a set of car keys so he could go home. “Facing the family was the hardest thing I had to do. Trying to explain what happened. There was a feeling of loss and alienation with friends and family. I was restless and ignorant about wilderness but felt its calling. I found it difficult to live at home. I sensed people were treating me differently. I couldn’t take the pressure. I dropped out of school and worked construction. I lived at home and saved money for a four-wheel drive vehicle, tent, sleeping bag, and boots and took off by myself.”
Jim went to the Rockies and enrolled in NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) Mountain Guide training. The course lasted for 36 days on the mountain, resupplied by a pack horse. “Through that course, I discovered how much I didn’t know about the wilderness.” He came across a guy whose job was to go fishing and record what he caught and where he fished. Jim asked him how to get a job like that and was told to get a degree in conservation.
That fall he enrolled at Northern Michigan University. When he graduated with a B.S. in Conservation, he got a job with the U.S. Forest Service and started his career in Sault Ste. Marie. After Reagan became president, he lost his job because they reduced the workforce.
“I developed a strong connection with nature and find peace in being in the nucleus of it.” Jim moved and taught at an environmental education center in Cincinnati, working at a canoe livery on the Mohican River for two years.
After that job, “I went east to Vermont. I knew I would stay as soon as I got there, it was so beautiful.” During the next fifteen years, “I did a lot of backpacking and camping. I met my wife in Burlington, Vermont. She wanted to go backpacking and canoeing also.” Jim moved to New York where his wife was living. “There, I ended up building a canoe and made my wife and myself snowshoes. We still use them on trips today.”
“I worked five years at a job corps center teaching the building trades. I worked ten years in a juvenile detention center.
“After a year of marriage, we realized our parents were getting older. My mother was in Toledo and her parents were in the Twin Cities area. I wanted to go to the Upper Peninsula, she wanted Iowa. We ended up in Madison in 1996.” Jim agreed that it was a compromise.
Jim tried to get back into environmental science here in Madison, but the number of available graduates was high so after striking out a few times, he went back to school and obtained a license to teach. He attended Edgewood and UW, and obtained a certification to teach chemistry, physics, earth and environmental science, and biology.
“I think I ran into age discrimination.” Jim was now 50, and found he was not getting his job choice. He started substituting instead and “I love it.” He had 6-8 long term jobs along with short substitution work. He officially retired in 2022, but he still substitutes.
What brought you to Unity?
“I have a close second cousin named Shirley.” After his father’s death, “she invited him to her church, which was Unity of Toledo. His closeness to her and how struck he was by the message led to attending regularly. That was 1971.”
“The first week I was here I discovered Unity of Madison. There hadn’t been one where I lived in the past. Roger Goodwin was here, and I was inspired by him. I’ve been here for all the ministers since.”
What are your favorite activities at Unity?
“I enjoy many of the book studies; I don’t always get to the groups but read the books. I worked with the kids’ program during one of the books that tied the environment to our responsibilities. I’ve given Kate a bunch of lesson plans she can use, including one in which they are going to make bird nests with tweezers.”
In the past, “I used to do Earth Day activities with the kids.” He used slogans like “Give Earth a Chance.” and “6.8 billion years and still counting.” Jim did an activity where they did a tree encounter. They looked at a tree and every person took a different perspective, looking at a leaf, on the ground, etc. They came up with words to describe the tree from their view and made a poem. He thinks that would be a good activity for adults, also.
“I was on the Board as an alternate for one year and that’s when we hired Rev. Judy.”
“I’ve been an active member of the men’s breakfast since Marshall was here. I’m inspired by that group. Our format is you write a question that you want to ponder. I’ve organized weekend long canoe trips into northern Wisconsin over the past decade with that group. I feel spiritually guided to this very day by experiencing nature.”
Is there anything you’d like to see Unity do that would make your experience even better?
A project he wants to take on is replacing the Peace post out front. It came down when they were doing remodeling and he cleaned it and put it back. He looks at it every time he comes and reminds himself of what it says, “May Peace Prevail on Earth.”
“Sticking to the spiritual path. Since we’re all at different locations on the path to understanding our true nature, it’s encouraging to listen to others’ insights. For me, I like a quote from Wordsworth, ‘Come forth into the light and let nature be your guide.’”