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Emmett C. Harder - DEVA Author Update
#1
This weekend over the phone I re-connected with Emmett Harder, author of and colorful character of "These Canyons Are Full Of Ghosts" and his delightful wife Ruth. He's 90 years of age now but still sharp as tack and she may be more colorful than Emmett? Ruth, in fact has been dubbed, "The Jackie O" of Death Valley by some of her friends who think she was that glamorous. Ruth, like Shotgun Mary (of Panamint City)  and Shotgun Kitty (of Ash Meadows) was dead aim with rifles and pistols. 

He agreed to assist me as best he can with a video recreation of his hair raising 1970s airplane flight into Butte Valley depicted in a chapter titled "AIRMAIL" pages 179-184 in his book. Emmett was not piloting but he was sure more than a passive passenger!

As luck would have it we have some common links in San Bernardino California in spite of me being twenty years behind him. Emmett was a private airplane owner and pilot for awhile in the 1970's 80's. I never met him but had and have current dealings with several of his friends and neighbors. 

Shout out to our very own forum members Desert Fog and DAW89446, who turned me onto Emmett's book and means of contacting he and Ruth. Emmett is also a long time member of E. Clampus Vitus (The Clampers) and so I hope to mine some more glorious stories that maybe have not been told yet? 

My only regret is not getting turned onto all things DEVA thirty years ago instead of fifteen years ago. Better late than never!
Life begins in Death Valley
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#2
Hello Death Valley Dazed.
I read an old newspaper article (from 2001) about Emmett Harder concerning his research into the four missing German tourists in Death Valley.
The article also said Emmett was a CIA operative in Korea in 1950-51 and then again in Vietnam in 1954-55 when the CIA was assisting the French in their war with the Communists in North Vietnam.
Has he ever mentioned anything like that to you? It sounds fascinating if true. Hopefully you can ask him about that if you get a chance to speak or write to him again.
Thanks so much!! Paul H.
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