Wilfred Perry Eberhart was born in Yankton, South Dakota but moved to Colorado when he was three years old and his heart never left.  He grew up poor in Denver as one of six children with a single mother whom he adored and whose creative spirit he absorbed.  After graduating from East High School, he enlisted in the Navy and spent two years in the Pacific theater during World War II.  Afterward, he enrolled at the University of Colorado where he met a lovely woman from Brooklyn, New York named Sandy and they were married in 1949.  Son Dan came along soon after and the young family set sail for Paris where Perry studied at the Sorbonne and found his muse as a writer.  They returned in time for number two son, Peter whose birth was followed few years later by sisters Medley Ann and Eve.  Perry embarked on a career in journalism and along the way, developed a deep love for the history of his adopted state.  He authored four books about Colorado and doors opened for him to get intrinsically involved in state and local affairs.  A roller coaster of successes, failures and health issues underscored the life of a true maverick.  The World Lost a Man is his story told lovingly by his son, embellished with Perry’s own poetry. The book also explores the intricate connection between fathers and son.

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“Perry Eberhart captured Colorado’s past for future generations with his books on Colorado’s ghost towns.  He wrote about hundreds of communities in the mountains as well as on the plains. I doubt that there was a town out there that Perry didn’t research.  When I wrote my book about Colorado’s ghost towns and mining camps, I used Perry’s book as a guide.  He gladly shared the history he had chronicled.  So many Colorado towns that would have been forgotten are preserved in Perry’s books.  They are a gift to those of us who love Colorado.”

Sandra Dallas Author of Where Coyotes Howl, The Chili Queen and many other fine works of fiction and non-fiction

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The following reveiw by Peg Ekstrand appears in the Colorado Book Review at the Denver Public Library. Thanks to Dr Colorado, Tom Noel, for his support.

The World Lost a Man: The Life and Legacy of a Complicated Soul

By Peg Ekstrand

Wilfred Perry Eberhart, (1924-1989), known as Perry, was devoted to Colorado despite being born in South Dakota. His life was marked by early family hardship during the Depression, his service in the Naval Air Corps during World War II, and a lifelong passion for Colorado history, which he pursued through various jobs and studies. This memoir by his son Dan offers an intimate portrayal of Perry’s character and legacy.

Perry and his family moved to Denver when he was three. His father abandoned them during the Depression and young Perry helped support his family through numerous odd jobs while his mother became the Rocky Mountain News’s first female editor.

Perry served in the Naval Air Corps during World War II and was deeply affected when he witnessed the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, an experience that influenced profoundly him as these lines from his poem “Hiroshima” demonstrate:

            “We saw the ruin as it really was—a molten mass— . . .

            The heated fusion of the elements—

            A man’s house, a man’s furniture, and a man’s child.  . . . (page 80)

When Perry and his brother Jack returned from the war, they smoked cigarettes like locomotives and especially, dr[ank] alcohol, lots of it.” (page 85) In fact, “Alcohol became an ingrained indulgence at family gatherings.” (page 85)

Perry went on to study literature at the University of Colorado, graduating in 1949 and marrying his college sweetheart the same year. He worked a number of writing-related jobs at several organizations and news outlets and spent time as a museum guide, nurturing his fascination with Colorado history.

He earned a certificate in writing from the Sorbonne in Paris with wife Sandy and young son Dan in tow, but returned to Denver in 1953, due to employment challenges. He decided to

return to CU to receive his teaching certificate.

Seeking much-longed-for respect, he submitted a manuscript of a comprehensive guidebook to Sage Books. Late in 1959, his first book, Guide to Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps, was published and it became “the most popular book Sage had printed to date.” (page 167) The book is still in publication “over 60 years later.” (page 168) Two years after that, his next book, Treasure Tales of the Rockies, was issued.

Hefrequently presented his popular slide lectures on Colorado history and came to be known as “the ‘go-to-guy’ for questions about . . . the state’s history.” (page 199) In 1970, he co-authored his third book, The Fourteeners: Colorado’s Great Mountains.

He next entered the field of conservation becoming the executive director of the South Platte Area Redevelopment Commission. But history called again in the early 1970s when he became a research assistant at the Colorado Historical Society to catalog “1,000 of the state’s historic sites.” (page 225) From there, he served as the deputy director for the Colorado Centennial Bi-Centennial Commission to work on “commemorating the state’s history and its historic sites.” (page 225)

Then Perry’s health started to fail, he was diagnosed with diabetes, which ultimately led to the amputation of a toe and a foot. And still he continued to drink. He was not happy at his point in his life. As his son Dan reflected, “Dad was known and generally respected, but not necessarily celebrated as he may have hoped, nor showered with financial reward and professional standing. His desire to be acknowledged on his own merit and integrity was noble but incomplete.” (page 248) Perry’s inability to market himself and play the political game “may well have undercut the valiant ambition that fired his soul.” (page 248)

He published his final manuscript Ghosts of the Plains in 1986. In the book, he challenged the perception that “the . . . booms and busts of Colorado’s flatlands and prairies were not as sexy as the stories from the exalted Rockies.” (page 256)

Perry died on January 13, 1989, just 64 years old. His “doctor confided that cirrhosis of the liver had ravaged his body, his organs gave up after years of mistreatment.” (page 260)

This thoroughly researched memoir represents a son’s quest to know the father who left him too soon. The book is full of a son’s real lament of the lost opportunity to get to know his father better while he was alive. And it stands as a great tribute to a great man–warts and all Dan is fortunate to have had access to the 39 boxes his family donated of his father’s “unfinished manuscripts, research, notes and documents” (page 261), plus a wonderful collection of his poetry, to the Denver Public Library. He made exemplary use of all of it. . I might have considered this an as alternate title for this book, A Son’s Journey to Find the Man the World Lost: A True Labor of Love.

I would have found an index for this wonderful work to be of help as the biography’s level of detail is quite extensive.

Peg, now retired, was director of client services for CRL Associates, a leading government relations, public affairs and strategic communications firm. Prior to that, she served for 17 years, at the state level, as public relations director and editor of Colorado History News for the Colorado Historical Society, now History Colorado. Peg has a master’s degree in Western U.S. History from the University of Colorado-Denver and was on the affiliate history faculty of Metropolitan State University Denver for over a decade. In addition, she researched and wrote a local history column for Life on Capitol Hill for many years.

More reviews:

Dan Eberhart’s latest book captures the intriguing complexities of his father Perry Eberhart in The World Lost A Man. The book’s title coming from the first of many of Perry’s poems that Dan includes in this intimate examination of a person everyone struggles to understand – their own father. Perry’s life went from the extraordinary experience of walking the grounds of Hiroshima a month after the bombing as a young Navy sailor, to living his salad days in Paris attending the Sorbonne University, to becoming the go-to author for Colorado ghost towns and mining camps. Dan weaves the personal and professional episodes of his father life with a tender determination while showing the struggles and triumphs that was his father’s life. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in the universal truths of a father-son story told with humor and great love. — MM

“I especially love the memoir aspect of this book as Dan discovers the richness of his father’s life through the writing and a wealth of poetry left behind. It is explored with love and admiration for the man he would have liked to have known more deeply. The gift of writing was clearly handed down.” — SH

“I want to tell how enjoyable I found it to read. It has been half a century since I last read a book in English (I am French), and I find it almost as easy as it was when I was a student. The author has done an extraordinary job of documenting and analyzing the chronology and facts. At every moment we feel the emotion, respect and love that he had for his parents and their choices. Thank you for sharing them with your readers.” — JL

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