Exploring the God Idea

Raymond Macdonald Alden (Jr.), born in 1921, grew up in Palo Alto, California, as the youngest of five siblings, children of a university professor who was also a notable author of scholarly works and of popular stories for children. (Many of the latter are again being published over a century after they were written. The best known is Why the Chimes Rang.) Raymond Jr. graduated from Stanford University in 1944 and went immediately into the US Naval Reserve. After the war, released from active duty, he worked as an engineer in the communications industry, employed successively by three companies. He held positions of engineer, chief engineer, vice president of operations, director, president and COO, and vice chairman of the board. During his working years, he lived in California, Oregon, Hawaii, Kansas, and Missouri. He retired in 1983, settling in Santa Rosa, California, where he now resides. He and Sara Wills Alden, his wife of sixty-nine years (now deceased), have had three children, seven grandchildren, and (thus far) eight great-grandchildren. His autobiography, Reflections of a Renaissance Pilgrim, was self-published through Xlibris Corporation in 2010.