Ruth Harkin memoir shows wit and fortitude of a woman who's made a difference

When I pulled up to the Harkin home in Cumming to interview Ruth Harkin, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It’s where U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin grew up, and it reminded me of the home of my long-gone aunt and uncle who lived down the gravel road from us in “Dogpatch,” a semi-rural area between Des Moines and Johnston.

That’s where I grew up in the 1950s and '60s. Long-dormant summer memories flickered through my head, of my sisters and cousins running, laughing and playing games in the yard at family potlucks while the dozen or so women of my extended family worked in the kitchen and the men lounged in the shade outside.

I slammed the door of my truck and walked past flower beds and up the steps to the house, where I could see Ruth’s silhouette through the screen door. She welcomed me with a smile, and we sat at the dining table and talked. It felt comfortable. Ruth is a welcoming and personable host, and at our ages, she’s familiar ― like a long-lost cousin.

I was there to interview Ruth about her new book, "When My Husband Ran for President ...... and Other Short Stories."

Born and raised in Minnesota, Ruth got her bachelor's degree in English from the University of Minnesota and her law degree from the Columbus School of Law. Ruth’s sense of adventure emerges in her first chapter. One minute she’s drinking beer with a girlfriend at a bar near the University of Minnesota, and the next thing we know she’s near the DMZ in South Korea, the only woman at Camp Hovey, where as a civilian she ran the service club for a brigade of 2,500 men. Let me say that again. The only woman with 2,500 men. That’s unbelievable today. She writes she learned a lot about management in that job, particularly from the South Korean staff. I bet she did!

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On leave in Tokyo in 1967, she meets a handsome young aviator from Iowa named Tom Harkin. How they met is straight out of a romantic comedy ― two young Midwesterners meet by chance half a world away from home at a festival at a Shinto shrine, and cotton candy is involved! Reading that story I couldn’t help but cast the 1967 movie in my mind ― with Paul Newman playing Tom and Sandra Dee playing Ruth.

Ruth takes us by the hand as she and Tom build their careers. She was the first elected official in the family, serving as Story County Attorney from 1973 to 1979. The story of how that came about is rich with humor and serendipity. Ruth ran in part as a “sacrificial” candidate for an office she was told she couldn’t win, yet did, becoming the first woman county attorney in Iowa history.

Ruth is a fine writer with a punchy style. Her wry wit is almost always in play. Here’s a paragraph from the chapter “Harkin’s First Surgery,” for example.

"Something new. Harkin, now 76, had never had surgery. His wife and sister-in-law promised to be on hand for the event. This was not a comfort to Harkin. Although competent and capable, these two cannot even spell the word ‘sympathetic.’”

Ruth tells a story about husband Tom’s obsessive and eccentric restaurant behavior. Harkin fusses over every detail; from the view from their table to the freshness of the asparagus and if the right kind of booze is behind the bar, driving waiters nuts. If he could have the ZIP code of origin of the pork chop on his plate, that would be ideal. His obsession with the minutia of fine dining would put Martha Stewart to shame.

I’d have lunch with Ruth, but I’d have to insist she leave Tom at home. If Ruth’s story is even half true, I’d rather dine with a rambunctious, speedy 2-year-old too big for a high chair in an expensive five-star restaurant than with Tom. It’s stories like this that illustrate both Ruth's and Tom’s humor, and their fondness for each other.

The Harkins love the Bahamas and spend considerable time there. I wish I had more room to share parts of those stories, but you’ll just have to buy the book. Ruth notes that the island they spend time on has changed a lot over the years, losing some of the quiet and remoteness from when they first started traveling to the island. Thoughtful retrospection is too rare these days ― but not for Ruth.

She writes, “We were fortunate to have had the simple luxurious solitude that we enjoyed years ago. It may be gone forever, and we have contributed to this loss.”

I loved the details of Tom’s presidential campaign, especially where Ruth shares the decision-making processes, and how she juggled her career and family. While she was thinking about billable hours for work, she also had to help with the campaign and make sure everything at home went smoothly. Her description of her husband, a U.S. senator and presidential candidate, grilling daughter Amy’s first date shows that family always came first, and that laughter was often involved.

There are some darker moments too. When Ruth describes her efforts to save Tom from drowning in icy waters, I felt myself trying to help her throw him a line. And Ruth shares a story of a plane ride with Strom Thurmond from South Carolina, the late, racist U.S. senator, that shows us that he was even a worse person than we thought he was.

Ruth writes with pride of the founding of the Tom and Ruth Harkin Center at Drake University. It opened in 2020, 30 years after the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

These are just a few stories from Ruth’s illustrious life, and there are many more in the book. Along the way she also served as deputy counsel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, worked for a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm, and in 1993 was appointed chair and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. by President Bill Clinton. She became a senior vice president for United Technologies, a director of ConocoPhillips, and a member of the Iowa Board of Regents.

At every step along the way, Ruth was a pioneer for women’s rights. She did everything she could to help other women while society resisted and continues to resist to this day. In 2018, she was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame.

Ruth started to write this book for her family and friends. But it’s a bigger book than that. It’s an important memoir by a pathbreaking Iowa woman who never stepped away from a challenge and did her best to make a difference with her career, with her family and by inspiring others. Gift the book to young people so our children and grandchildren know how far women have come, and that there is still far to go, especially as women’s rights come increasingly under attack.

Thinking back to those summer Iowa potlucks of my youth, with the kids playing in the yard and the women working in the kitchen while the men lounged in the shade, I wonder what those smart, hardworking women, my kin, could have achieved in a different time and place if there had been more women around like Ruth Harkin to help educate and inspire them to break society’s chains. 

I know some of those women, including my mom, wanted more. Much more. Like Ruth.

Robert Leonard has had bylines in The New York Times, TIME, the Des Moines Register, Iowa Capital Dispatch, USA TODAY and other publications. He also writes at Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture and is a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative.

About the book

Title:When My Husband Ran for President ...... and Other Short Stories

Author: Ruth Harkin

Publisher: Ice Cube Press, ISBN 9781948509534

Price: $20

Events, signings for Ruth Harkin book

Thursday, Sept. 5: Book release, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at The Harkin Center, Drake University, 2800 University Ave., Des Moines. Beaverdale Books will be on hand to sell books. (The date for this event was incorrect in an earlier version of the story.) The event is free, but registration is required.

Here's the link for tickets. 

Wednesday, Sept. 11: Event at 6 p.m., hosted by Prairie Lights Bookstore, at the Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., to be moderated by Robert Downer, an attorney and colleague with Ruth Harkin on the Iowa Board of Regents.

Saturday, Sept. 14: Event at 5 pm., moderated by Charlie Cook, founder of Cook Political Report, at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.

Thursday, Sept. 26: Book talk and signing at 6:30 p.m., West Des Moines Public Library, 4000 Mills Civic Parkway. Part of an author series. Co-sponsored by The Harkin Institute. Beaverdale Books will be selling books.