Helen Harkins’ home is a nest of beautifully decorated eggs
Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, April 22, 2003
- Naselle resident Helen Harkins shows off one of her many decorative collectible eggs. AUDREY WIRKKALA photo
NASELLE – An extensive decorated egg collection serves to remind Helen Harkins of Naselle of the many places that she has lived and collected decorated eggs. Harkins says, “When I display my collection, it is like going down memory lane.”
Harkins started her collection in 1980 while she was living in Germany with her husband Ted. Ted was serving in the U.S. Air Force at the time and Helen was teaching for the Department of Defense.
“I spent 30 years overseas teaching,” Harkins said. “We lived in Turkey, Germany, and Okinawa. We did extensive traveling during our stay overseas, and this has really made us love our country – America.”
“My collection began when a friend asked me to get her an egg while traveling because she was unable to travel with three children. This intrigued my husband who got me started collecting. Needless to say, I didn’t think my collection would grow to be about 500 eggs.”
Harkins is quick to share her collection with others. She recently gave a presentation at the Naselle Timberland Library on the history of decorative eggs from pre-Christian times through Christianity.
She explained that her eggs have come from many mediums.
“I have real eggs – from many types of birds, and ones made from porcelain, glass, wood, metal, paper, and other mediums. Friends and students, and places we have visited, have made my collection of eggs. Naselle has an excellent artist, Tim Bates, who designs Ukrainian eggs, who has also added an egg or two to my collection.”
Some of Harkins’s egg collection are very simple in design while others are very elaborate. Many are inexpensive and others are valuable.
She has her favorites among the collection which is now nearing 500.
“Two of my favorites are a Zippo lighter made into an egg shape that came from World War II and the other from a boy in an orphanage in Poland when I donated school supplies to their Easter weekend in 1981. It is a simple watercolor design and I treasure it because eggs were very valuable to come by at that time,” concludes Harkins, egg collector extraordinaire.
