Writer Harriet Doerr (1910–2002) lived her life as a passionate celebration of wisdom and tenacity, memory, and honor.

Doerr left Stanford University in 1929 to marry and raise her family. She returned to the school in 1975 after her husband’s death. At the age of 67, she earned her degree in European History — and then turned to writing. She persisted, and her life kept opening.

Stanford Magazine later described her life simply: “Late to Bloom, She Stunned Them All.”

“Writing derives from an accumulation of experience. It’s as if you collect facts and observations over time, like stones to stand on. From there, imagination takes over,” she explained.

At age 73, her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Stones for Ibarra, received a National Book Award. The story is honest and free of sentimentality. The New Yorker observed that the novel “pierces the heart.”

Doerr also wrote the novel Consider This, Señora (1993) and a collection of short stories, The Tiger in the Grass (1996). Her beautiful words honored her life’s experiences — with tenderness, heart, and humor.

Born in Pasadena, California, she was the granddaughter of railroad tycoon Henry Edwards Huntington. “You cannot just waste time,” she warned. “Otherwise you’ll die to regret it.”

Harriet Doerr’s life reminds us that nothing we live is ever wasted. Nothing is lost. Our enormous river of life has no end.