 Elizabeth Wilson, activity director for the Benton Healthcare Center, listens to stories from James Bordner, who will turn 101 on Tuesday. Bordner, born in Pennsylvania in 1907, talked about his life as a taxidermist, including doing work inside the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C,. and how he moved to Arkansas. Benton Healthcare Center will hold a birthday celebration for him on New Year’s Day. (Courier photo by Matt Burks)
Born on Jan. 1, 1907, in rural Pennsylvania, Bordner said he lived in a lot of different states throughout the years. However, he chose to live the majority of his years in Benton.
“I have been to a lot places and seen a lot of things in my lifetime. I have such a long story it could take a month or two to tell it all. I have forgotten a lot of things too,” Bordner said with a laugh.
“You can’t remember everything. I came to Arkansas and liked it a lot. I like the mountains and thought there was good hunting and fishing here.”
Bordner, the youngest of four brothers growing up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the early 1900s, said he lived a good life, even during the Great Depression. It all started when his uncle showed him his beginnings in the taxidermy business.
“I was about 10 years old and my uncle was a woodworker, but he also would stuff owls,” Bordner said. “It wasn’t illegal to stuff owls back then. I used to watch him and it fascinated me. He asked me if I wanted to learn how to do it, and I said ‘yeah I want to learn.’ My first owl that I stuffed, he looked at it and said that mine looked better than his and that was the beginning of it all. I have been doing that ever since.”
When he was nearly 18, Bordner said he was corresponding with a business in New York City about his taxidermy skills and they sent him an invitation to study with their studio. It was during the “roaring” 1920s when Bordner said he boarded a train and headed for New York. He spent four years perfecting his skills to become a professional taxidermist. He also learned the art of painting and sculpture at the James L. Clark studio.
“They said come on up and we’ll make you a real taxidermist,” Bordner said. “They said they would make a professional out of me and they did. I packed my bags and got on a train to New York, but I was in for a bit of a surprise. The big city was different for me, but I stayed there and got my training.”
It was during his time at the studio in New York that Bordner and fellow students worked on taxidermy projects that still stand today at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He and several students stuffed elephants, zebras, elk, grizzly bears, deer and much more for display.
“I have done everything from hummingbirds to elephants,” Bordner said. “At the Smithsonian we stuffed a lot of different animals to put behind on the displays. I actually worked on three elephants, and I think in my lifetime I have probably done about 25,000 deer heads. I have stuffed just about every kind of animal. You know they all relate to each other — the art, sculpting and taxidermy. That is one thing I learned and believe is that they are related to each other in ways.”
After four years of his study in New York, Bordner then headed west to Colorado where he worked for three different companies before heading to San Antonio.
“I didn’t like the big city,” Bordner said. “So after coming back home to Pennsylvania, I headed out west to Colorado. I worked with some of the best [in the taxidermy business]. I didn’t like all the snow blizzards there. I had seen some of the worst snow blizzards. I then went to San Antonio for about four years and decided to travel and ended up in Arkansas. I did go to Michigan for awhile, but then came back to Arkansas, mostly living in Benton.”
During his travels, Bordner married, but his wife died of high fever two years after they were married.
He and his wife had one daughter, who is now 80 and lives in Newport News, Va. Bordner said he has a lot of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but he rarely gets to see them because most live in Virginia or Pennsylvania.
One of his prized possessions he keeps in his drawer at the Benton Healthcare Center is a birthday card his daughter sent that includes many photos of him and animals he stuffed through the years. One photo shows Bordner holding a mounted 6-foot rattlesnake.
“I stuffed a two-headed calf,” Bordner said when asked what is the strangest animals he stuffed. “I also stuffed a horse that was born with no tail.”
After moving back to Arkansas from Michigan, Bordner once owned Bordner’s Taxidermy in Tull where he said he “put in a lot of work in that small shop.”
Not only did Bordner talk about his life as a taxidermist, but he also reflected on things that many in today’s world have never experienced, such as the Great Depression.
“Nineteen twenty-nine, I remember it well,” Bordner said. “My family wasn’t hit so hard during that time, though, because we raised everything we ate on a small farm.”
When asked about his favorite time period since he was born, Bordner said he enjoyed the mid-1930s to early 1940s the most.
He also said some of the biggest changes he has seen in the world include the introduction of plastic and the changes in vehicles. Bordner said when he and his fellow classmates worked on projects at the Smithsonian, they had to make artificial water displays, which was a long, hard process involving glass and other products.
“It would be easy to make artificial water now with plastics,” Bordner said. “It was hard then, though, to make it. I saw big changes in cars, too. I saw changes from the Model-T Ford to cars in the present. Back then, in the ‘30s, they built cars for poor people. Now they build cars for rich people.
“It is really hard to answer what all changes I’ve seen, with everything that I have seen and accomplished over my life. There are a lot of things to tell. That’s all a long time ago. Many things have happened, and I have seen some of the greatest things in the world.”
For the future, Bordner said his health is improving, and even one of his nurses, Elizabeth Wilson, said he “gives tips to us on how to be healthy” and to “stop smoking.”
“I came to Benton Healthcare Center a couple of months ago,” Bordner said. “I had problems with my legs, and when I first got here, they put me in a wheelchair. I got rid of that. Then they gave me a walker and I got rid of that. I am walking up straight now, and I am getting back to walking good. That is a really good feeling.”
The Benton Healthcare Center will help Bordner enjoy more of his long life with a birthday celebration for his 101 years of living.
“They won’t tell me what they got going on for me,” Bordner said with a laugh. “I know they have something happening though. They just won’t tell me, but we’ll have a good time. Maybe I’ll get a big piece of some chocolate cake.”
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