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Brethren Retirement Community
Meet Jim Fourman
By Delbert Blickenstaff
It’s
good that the price of gasoline was only 21 cents a gallon in 1950.
Otherwise Jim would not have been able to make his frequent trips
(almost weekly) from Dayton to North Manchester, Indiana to see his
sweetie, Donna Olinger. Donna was a Freshman at Manchester College and
they had met at the home of her roommate, Beverly Bright, near Vandalia.
Jim
remembers that he proposed in a canoe on the Old River, and jokingly
states that Donna had fallen in love with his new red 1950 Chevy. They
were married on June 30, 1951 in the First Brethren Church on North
Main in Dayton. They were married by Rev. John Long of the Mack
Memorial Church of the Brethren, where Jim was a member, and which was
in the process of being built.
Jim was born on a farm a few
miles south of Bradford, OH on March 5, 1927. Jim was number 8 in a
family of nine children (5 boys and 4 girls). His father farmed 100
acres, 7 of which were in tobacco, a cash crop. Jim remembers hoeing in
the tobacco field and picking big fat worms off the plants.
Jim’s
father had a herd of 12 cows, three of which were assigned to Jim to
milk by hand morning and evening. In 1941 Jim’s oldest brother was
killed when a semi he was riding in as a passenger was hit by a train.
This family tragedy had a sobering effect on young Jim because he
idolized his older brother.
Jim’s first out of state trip
was when he enlisted in the Army and left on Feb. 7, 1944 on a troop
train from Bradford, OH to Tacoma, WA. He spent 17 weeks in basic
training at Fort Lewis, WA, and then he spent time at Camp Stonman, CA,
and at Fort Sam Houstin, TX. His first experience on the ocean was when
he boarded a troop ship in San Francisco.
The ship was on
its way to the war in the South Pacific when the first atomic bomb was
dropped on Hiroshima, and it immediately turned around and headed back
to San Francisco. Jim was discharged from the Army at Camp Stonman in
February 1947, grateful that he didn’t see combat.
Back in
Dayton Jim had no trouble in finding a good job at Monarch Marketing
Co., where he worked for 17 years. He lost his job when Monarch was
bought by a New Jersey company. Friend Bob Noffsinger suggested to Jim
that he become a teacher. Since Jim was proficient in graphic arts he
went back to school and earned a teaching certificate from University
of Cincinnati. He taught at Roosevelt H. S., Dunbar H. S., and Grace A.
Green Vocational Center in Dayton.
Jim was named Ohio Teacher of the Year in 1987 at the Ohio Vocational Education Conference in Cincinnati, OH.
Jim
and his wife Donna have two children: Garry, born in 1955, and Wanda,
born in 1958. Jim has Garry to thank for getting him to stop smoking.
When Garry was 6 years old he wanted his dad to give up cigarettes, so
he threw his dad’s smokes in the toilet, and Jim hasn’t smoked since.
Garry is now a Professor at Ohio State Community College, and Wanda is
a Chaplain in Winnipeg, Canada.
Jim and Donna moved from
Dayton to a cottage in the Brethren Home Retirement Community in 2001,
and enjoy their friends and neighbors, and watching the swans.
Delbert Blickenstaff, M.D.
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