‘Gypsy Soul: Memoirs of a Hippie Kid’ tracks local therapist's ‘terrifying but hilarious’ childhood, and offers lessons on enduring through trauma

What’s in a name? For one local trauma therapist with a name like no other it’s the basis for her book, “Gypsy Soul: Memoirs of a Hippie Kid,” in which she recounts in a little over a hundred pages what it was like being raised by hippies.

And what that was like, in author Gypsy Soul Ray’s own words, was “terrifying but hilarious.”

“That’s a summary of my childhood,” said Ray – whose first and middle names are indeed Gypsy Soul, inspired by the Van Morrison song “Into the Mystic,” and it would have been her name regardless of whether she’d been a girl or a boy. 

“When people hear my name, they have questions, and when they hear my story they say I have to write a book,” she said. “Being raised as a hippie kid on a farm in Montana in the ‘70s and ‘80s was way unique. Most kids didn’t have a name or a background like me.”

While every name and every person may have a story to tell, there’s certainly none quite like hers, and that’s where it all begins. Actually, it begins with her parents, but they’ll have to wait a bit as the first question that comes to mind upon meeting her in person is something along the lines of when did she trade in flower-print dresses and hand-me-downs for fine sweaters and jeans that could’ve come from a department store? 

The answer, it turns out, was as soon as she could.

“Early on I made the decision that this wasn’t going to be my life when I got control of it,” she said. “I remember in kindergarten, this moment when I was walking back to my classroom and I told myself I was gonna be rich so I wouldn’t have to be different from everyone.”

Yet while she held true to her early childhood resolve – growing into an athletic young woman who married her high school sweetheart, went to college and then graduate school, became a successful grant writer and therapist while raising two kids, and now lives at Georgetown Lake and operates her own practice with offices in Anaconda and Philipsburg – the one thing she did keep was her name. Even if she was at least tempted to change it to Jennifer. But Gypsy Soul she remains.

“It shaped me into who I am,” she said. “People come and see me and don’t know what to expect. … The biggest impact was not fulfilling people’s expectations.”

One expectation she did fulfill, however, was her own, as she had set a personal goal of writing her memoirs by the time she was 50 – a goal she achieved.

“The whole premise behind it was when covid hit, my brother [Greg] was turning 50,” she explained, noting that at family get-togethers she and her brother would tell stories about growing up. As things progressed from telling those stories to writing them down, they created an outline of what happened, and when questions inevitably came up that they didn’t know the answers to, “my daughter would send letters to my mom. … That kind of made it fun.”

And letters were the only way to get in touch with her mom, Dynah (originally Diane), who in her mid-70s still lives completely off the grid. Her dad, Tom, died of a drug overdose in 1985, and had been out of the picture even before that as her parents had swapped partners at a swingers’ party in 1978 and didn’t look back.

Also, her older brother, John (note that both her brothers were given “normal” names because her mom wanted them to be different from the hippie kids in California, while Gypsy arrived when they were in Montana and, again, her mom wanted her to be different), had died of alcoholism in 1999 at age 32. His story will be the topic of her next book in fact. Yet there was still the matter of writing the first book, and it was up to her and Greg to piece it all together.

And piece it they did, though having plenty of old photo albums to draw from – along with her mom’s letters that she “kind of had to translate” – helped bring the story to life.

“Having so many photos when growing up in that kind of movement is rare,” she said.

So, over the course of a year she wrote the book, at first following a program where she created a framework for it, but then upon getting some feedback that she should just write the manuscript that’s exactly what she did. Once that was done, and the layout and design completed, it was off to the presses to fill her preorders – she sold 150 books before it went to print – and then off to retailers around Montana.

“I sold 315 in about eight weeks, and that doesn’t count Amazon sales,” she said.

The feedback she’s received has been positive. 

“It’s been good. I haven’t had any negative feedback about it,” she said. “There are people still living who are in it and they’ve given me feedback.” 

One such person is her mom, who received an advance copy before the book went to press “so she wouldn’t be blindsided,” she said.

“I sent her a note saying I don’t intend to hurt anyone. This isn’t about saying my parents were terrible, just to tell my story and say ‘isn’t this wild,’” she said.

Her mom has since sent her half a dozen letters to tell her side of the story. Also, whether by coincidence or fate, at the same time that her book was going to press a reporter has been conducting interviews with her mom for an article about her to be published in Esquire.

As to the book itself, it’s told as a series of memories – 67 of them in fact, plus an 18-page introduction that tells the story of her parents and their transformation from model and Marine from well-to-do families to the hippie movement in Berkeley and beyond – with some memories consisting of a few pages and others perhaps a few paragraphs, so at 114 pages replete with photographs and some excerpts from Dynah’s letters it’s a quick read. 

Quick, but often heavy, with memories bearing such titles as “Cocaine Scavenger Hunt,” “Prom Night Suicide” and “Summer with a Smuggler,” written in a matter-of-fact style that conveys traumatic events seen through a child’s eyes but recollected in adulthood and reflected through years of experience.

“This book isn’t about ‘poor me,’ it’s very much a book about resiliency and making your own way,” she explained, noting that she included a page at the end discussing her ACEs – Adverse Childhood Experiences – score, which was very high, but her Resiliency score was very high as well, an indicator that while she experienced quite a bit of trauma as a child she also had people around her to help get her through it.

“I was always loved, I had people who believed in me – my parents, my coaches. Being a trauma therapist, that’s something I talk about – finding ways to overcome trauma,” she said. “This book has been my own therapy.”

Indeed she didn’t even have counseling herself until she went to grad school, where it was a requirement on her way to becoming a licensed clinical therapist – which wasn’t her first career choice. Her first choice was about as non-hippie as it gets in fact.

“I went to college to become an accountant. I had it in my mind that’s how I’d make a lot of money,” she said. “But in my junior year I realized, ‘How am I gonna sit behind a desk, because that’s not me.’ I switched to counseling, and that’s what felt right.”

And while it may feel odd talking about something as commercial as Christmas shopping within the context of a story about hippies, if you’re looking for a stocking-stuffer idea make sure to add “Gypsy Soul: Memoirs of a Hippie Kid” to your list. The book is available for purchase at Thrifty Drug in Anaconda, Bison Books in Philipsburg, and ordering information is also available online at the website of her publisher, Kalispell-based Scott Publishing Company, at www.scottpublishingcompany.com.