Early Life of James A. Owen

The Early Life of James A. Owen   (Birth to age 12)

This week I re-read James A. Owen’s personal history written in May 1976 while he lived in Leeds, UT.   (Maxine Owen was away caring for me and my first born, Allison Lauree in Provo, UT.) As I re-read this history I thought it would be good to share portions of his 16-page document with the family.

Ralph Eugene Owen, Jim’s father, died when he was only a seven and a half year old boy.  James was the youngest of five children (ages 7 to 18) when Ida Ellen Owen became a single mom in 1928.

The Ralph and Ida Owen Family in 1925.

Jim loved his widowed mother and had a special relationship with his “Angel Mother”.  “My mother (Ida Ellen Fish Owen) often spoke of her own father (Isaac Fish) saying, 'We were not the richest people in Brown County (Indiana) but we were known as the most honest.'"

Ida Fish Owen would never even say the word “lie” as it was a vulgar, dirty word.  She would never even tell a white lie for a joke on someone.  James wrote of his mother: “When she’d feel that I was joking or kidding and telling a falsehood for fun, she’d just say to me, ‘James, you’re storying!’”

James was born in Dorans, Illinois (“a small, lightly wide place in the road with only a small store”) on Feb. 7, 1921.  His father (Ralph Eugene Owen) was a teacher and a dairy farmer.  Ralph and Ida had moved to Dorans to work for a wealthy farmer named Farrah and lived there for 3 years before moving to Humboldt, Illinois.

Ralph was a lay minister at the Humboldt United Methodist Church.  He would preach the sermon 2-3 times a month while the circuit-riding minster would be there on alternating Sundays or maybe just one week in four.  Jim writes of his father, “He was a man of strong moral conviction with a strong testimony of the reality of God.”  (It appears this same United Methodist Church is still used today and is located at 419 Jefferson St., Humboldt, Illinois.)

Humboldt was a small town with about 300 people “centered on the school and the church.”   The Owen family  “lived in a nice house on a corner of a city block with a wooden fence in front and lots of shrubs around it.”  They were across the street from the four main lines of (railroad) tracks going to Chicago (about 165 miles to the north).  James loved watching the trains.

Train tracks were across from the Owen home in Humboldt.

Nearby was the Carpenter’s drug store that “had a large wooden Indian Chief as a cigar advertisement.  Oh, he always scared me.”

The scary wooden Indian selling cigars.

“My dad (Ralph E. Owen) always said that no one should ever be turned away from our door hungry.  We had many so-called 'bums' because of the railroad.  They would ride the empty freight cars.  When Dad was home, the bums were invited in to our (kitchen) table to eat. When Dad was not home, Mom was instructed not to let anyone in and to keep the door locked at night.  If 'bums' came during the day and the family was home, then Mom often fed them in the breezeway off of the kitchen.”  (James was told this story by his older sisters as he was too young to remember.)

When he was a small boy of four years, the Owen family came home from church one Sunday and Ida tried to put James down for an afternoon nap.  It was a very hot day, so he sat down by the upstairs window.  His mom had warned him about leaning back on the screen.   “I should have listened to Mom,” he thought as he fell the fourteen feet into a bush below.   James lived to tell the story but a piece of glass cut his scalp and he was frightened.  He wrote, “This started a series of events in my life that showed me that if I would listen and try, then God would place a protective shield around me to protect and extend my life so that the purpose of mortality might be fulfilled.”

This is an actual photo of the Owen's Model T loaded up for the move in 1926.

When he was five years old, the family was transferred to Lincoln, Nebraska.   The town of Humboldt gave them going away parties and there were many sad goodbyes as they joked that the Owen family was moving to the “Wild West”.   Ralph’s youngest sister, Ina, was especially sad to see her brother leave town.  

On the way to Nebraska, the family would stop at tourist cabins.  It took 2-3 days and was about a 500 mile trip on very 1926 rough roads. 

Similar to a tourist cabin of the 1920's.

On the long trip, James remembers being in a large city getting groceries.  He was across the street from his family and ran to catch up with them. “This was a busy street with much traffic and streetcar tracks down the middle of the street.  Not heeding the traffic…I darted for the safety of (my family).  I made it across the traffic lane…only then to have that ever-present guardian angel again provide that invisible but real shield of protection around me.  I tripped on the streetcar tracks and went sprawling face down…a speeding car missed me by a few inches.  The next thing I recall was being in the bosom of my lovely Angel Mother (Ida Fish Owen) assuring me that all was well.”

The next two years in Lincoln, Nebraska were happy ones.   Their new home was in College View, a suburb of Lincoln where a Seventh-day Adventist College (now Union College) is located.  The home was located at 368 L Street and  had two bedrooms, an unfinished upstairs and a full basement.

On Sunday mornings Jim would run and jump in bed with his parents and his dad would read the Sunday funnies to him.  Then they would go to Sunday School and church.  Afterwards, Sunday dinners were always extra nice (silverware, goblets, desserts) and often with company.  Ralph especially enjoyed loved corn on the cob.  

James Owen in Kindergarten

When attending church, if any of the five children were unruly, Ralph would simply raise his eyebrows and the kids would straighten up.  One Easter Sunday, Jim was to recite the 23^rd Psalm.  He was six years old.  “Boy, I knew it was going to be a big day in my life.  Sunday morning I awakened and didn’t feel well.  I went down to see Mom and Dad and they said my face was swollen.  Mumps.”    

When Jim was a second grader he missed two weeks of school with the “croup”.  “The Doctor said my tonsils should come out, so out they came.  It was great as I got to be put in Mom’s special “guest room” and had visitors.”   His Sunday School teacher came and gave him a movie ticket.  “As a group, she was going to take the class to the great silent picture “King of Kings” and I was sick, so she came over and gave me a special card and some money on a ticket that I might go to it later.  So I told my friends and they dubbed me “Mrs. Gregg’s Little Angel.  Just thought you would all like to know of that incontestable historical fact.”

"Angel" James in grade school

In those days, people left their cars in the driveways, keys and all.  One day six-year old James and his neighbor friend got in the Model T to make believe they were driving all over the world.  Then they pretended to be “stuck” and the neighbor boy got out and was “pushing”.  Jim turned on the key, pushed in the clutch and his friend really pushed.  Jim started down the incline without any knowledge of how to stop the car.  He then took his foot off the clutch and the car started!  The car (guided by Jim’s “Guardian Angel”) steered into a cinder pile about 30-40 feet down the road and the 18 horsepower engine stopped.  Luckily, there was no damage to the car.

Typical of Model T in 1920's

The new Model T was Ralph’s pride and joy.  Little James knew he was in trouble.  He streaked straight to his bed and hid under the covers awaiting discovery and then punishment.  When Ralph returned home, Jim's brothers and sisters let their parents know what had happened.  Ralph said, “Where’s James?”   “In bed, hiding”.  Jim wrote:  “I remember his quick steps up those stairs as I awaited the decision of the earthly Judge.  Apparently when he saw that little scared six-year old sobbing his heart out for fear of what might have happened, my Dad, was just like my Heavenly Dad who knew the price had already been paid and he put his strong arm around me and held me close and I sighed and cried with joy for my “two Dad’s understood and forgave me.”

Typical Indian Costume of 1920's

James remembers: “My Dad bought my brother (Harold) and me cowboy and Indian suits which we enjoyed.  He had a picture of us that he carried in his wallet to show people his two sons that he loved so much.  I remember often running and chasing with my brother.  I felt I could run as fast as the wind because I could outrun my older brother.”

James and Harold in their cowboy costumes.

James remembers attending Kindergarten in the College View High School Building.  He loved playing in the gymnasium when it was bad weather outside. 

School James Owen attended in Lincoln, Nebraska

In the summer of 1928, Jim’s parents were going to celebrate their 20^th wedding anniversary by taking a vacation trip together in western Nebraska.  The kids were to stay home with a babysitter, Mrs. Livengood.  “I believe my brother Harold and I put on our cowboy suits to please Dad as he liked them so well.  I still remember standing on the front porch steps.  I was sad and despondent.  I don’t know how or why, all I knew was that I’d never see my Dad alive again.  It was my most unforgettable farewell.  (While they were gone) I was listless and didn’t play with much enthusiasm. (I was) just a sad little fellow in need of his Mom and his Dad.”

“On the night of the 15^th of July (1928), Mom called and said Dad was in the hospital, sick with pneumonia.  The trip was to be a combination of business and pleasure and Dad had been trout fishing, which he loved to do and did only infrequently because of the pressure of the job.  He had gotten wet and chilled and in a couple of days he was in the hospital.” 

Ralph E. Owen loved fishing.

“Then the call came that Dad was worse.  Then the call came...that day that Dad was gone.  Everybody was so kind to our family.    Mom finally got home.  I think she accompanied the body on the train.  She was just broken and never got over it.”

“The funeral was simple and nice at the Community Church in College View.  I remember where I was sitting in the church.  They said that Dad was always a friend to everyone, (that) there were no strangers (to my dad).  Even the vicious dogs were Dad’s friends.  He would just walk up and pet them.  Then I remember going to the cemetery.”

Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Following the death of their provider, the family moved to University Place, a Methodist Community built around Nebraska Wesleyan University.  Their house was conveniently one block from the campus.

James, his mother Ida, and sister Delcie outside of their home in Lincoln, Nebraska

Their home had four bedrooms and a bath upstairs.  Two bedrooms, front room, dining room and kitchen on the main floor and a 2/3^rd basement with a two car garage. 

“There was a chicken house for poultry and produce and two nice trees in the yard.  Mother had decided to run a rooming and boarding house.  We kept girls, but a few male students also.  That was the first year, then she gave it up and went to work cooking at the (Nebraska) Wesleyan college cafeteria.  She left early in the morning for her job at the cafeteria, but was home between 2:00 and 4:00 o’clock and then went back and worked until seven.  It sure helped to have her home after school.  Many nights when we were youmg, my brother (Harold) and I would go up to the campus to walk home with her or meet her part way.”

Jim writes about his memories in each of his school years, Kindergarten through 8^th grade.  “Our school was a great cross section:  college professor’s kids 1/3 of the class, 2/3 from the “home for Dependent Children (orphanage) and the last 1/3 were normal kids like me.” 

In  4^th Grade he remembers, “We did self testing drills in arithmetic.  One could work, to a degree, at one’s own speed.  In music, I may have been lacking, but in math I was on the other end of the spectrum.” 

During his 4^th grade year he also notes:  “I enjoyed the first of the month fire drills, which gave us the opportunity to get away from class for 30 minutes.  Each Christmas after practice in our individual (class)rooms and just before being dismissed for vacation, we would all gather on the stair landings of the hall and sing Christmas carols.”

While in 6^th grade he “fooled around a lot with crystal sets and had a good one.  I could get two stations  KRAB and KFOR.  I had in my room many electrical odds and ends and was always building something.”

“During my 7^th and 8^th grades, my interest in athletics grew immensely.  I was always the captain or leader and either the best or knew the best in most sports. We had fine coaches.  I remember the meticulous hours spent in gym class and after school with Coach Wyient teaching us the fundamentals of passing, shooting, zone defense, etc.”  Later Jim would become the a basketball star because of good training in his early years.

Ancil, Ida (mother), and James

Jim’s early childhood was traumatic with the loss of his father, but the care and love of older siblings made his life easier.  As his mom was a single parent, Jim really did try his best to be obedient and attentive in order to make her life easier.   

James A. Owen wrote that the reason he recorded his happy memories was so that “my children and other posterity might know of God’s gracious love toward one of His humble and grateful children.”