Jim Kirkham March 13, 1924 ~ January 28, 2014
Salt Lake City was my birthplace. My father was James Arno Kirkham, born in Lehi, Utah in 1896.
My mother was Sylvia Gene Gudmundsen, born in Iona, Idaho in 1898. The ancestry of my parents goes back to the settling of Utah in the 1850s.
The most fortunate event of my life was meeting Joan Backman while we were students at the University of Utah. Her parents were Ralph and Grace McCullough Backman.
World War II affected me profoundly. My Infantry division trained in Mississippi. The military was segregated and Jim Crow customs were rampant in the South. I experienced combat in France, Germany and Austria. Seeing men that I knew being wounded or killed was hard to accept. Opening several Jewish internment camps set up by the Nazis as we marched through Germany impacted me greatly. I lost all faith in religion. Religion no longer explained things nor answered my questions about the world.
The year of dating and courting Joan at the U of U revealed that we had much in common and that we were compatible philosophically. We were married February 27, 1948.
I graduated in 1949 with a degree in education and started a career that lasted 41 years, most of these years in Bureau of Indian Affairs programs in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Along the way seven wonderful children, each with unique and distinctive personalities, were born into our family. Rex, Ked, Kee and Rob were born in Utah. Jan and Jeff were born on the Navajo reservation in Arizona; Sue was born in New Mexico while we lived at the Santa Fe Indian School.
Friendships have meant so much to Joan and me. Promotions and transfers exposed us to so many wonderful people, many became lifelong friends. Keeping vibrant relationships with relatives and friends has been so gratifying.
I must mention the Wild Bunch Square Dance Club of Ogden, Utah. The dancing, Friendships set to Music, officer meetings, traveling, camping, feasting and card playing with these fine people during the last 15 years of our lives has brought us happiness beyond measure. Joan and I learned square dancing early in our marriage and have enjoyed that recreation in many states.
My war time experiences made me want to improve civil rights, racial and ethnic relationships. I joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) more than forty years ago. Again, this membership has exposed Joan and me to many great individuals and long time friends. A high point of my life has been representing the Ogden NAACP on the Davis County Schools Equity Committee. This school board sanctioned group meets and acts to improve and strengthen the educational experiences of minority and under represented students in one of Utah's largest and most effective school systems.
Like Joan, who died July 14, 2011 I have donated my body to the U of U for study. The Lions/Moran Eye Center has expressed need for my eyes to study macular degeneration. After cremation my desire is that my remains be scattered back to the earth in some serene setting. Like the good Native Americans that I lived and worked with for so many years, I know that we humans came from the earth and should return to the earth.
Published in the Ogden Standard Examiner
Salt Lake City was my birthplace. My father was James Arno Kirkham, born in Lehi, Utah in 1896.
My mother was Sylvia Gene Gudmundsen, born in Iona, Idaho in 1898. The ancestry of my parents goes back to the settling of Utah in the 1850s.
The most fortunate event of my life was meeting Joan Backman while we were students at the University of Utah. Her parents were Ralph and Grace McCullough Backman.
World War II affected me profoundly. My Infantry division trained in Mississippi. The military was segregated and Jim Crow customs were rampant in the South. I experienced combat in France, Germany and Austria. Seeing men that I knew being wounded or killed was hard to accept. Opening several Jewish internment camps set up by the Nazis as we marched through Germany impacted me greatly. I lost all faith in religion. Religion no longer explained things nor answered my questions about the world.
The year of dating and courting Joan at the U of U revealed that we had much in common and that we were compatible philosophically. We were married February 27, 1948.
I graduated in 1949 with a degree in education and started a career that lasted 41 years, most of these years in Bureau of Indian Affairs programs in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Along the way seven wonderful children, each with unique and distinctive personalities, were born into our family. Rex, Ked, Kee and Rob were born in Utah. Jan and Jeff were born on the Navajo reservation in Arizona; Sue was born in New Mexico while we lived at the Santa Fe Indian School.
Friendships have meant so much to Joan and me. Promotions and transfers exposed us to so many wonderful people, many became lifelong friends. Keeping vibrant relationships with relatives and friends has been so gratifying.
I must mention the Wild Bunch Square Dance Club of Ogden, Utah. The dancing, Friendships set to Music, officer meetings, traveling, camping, feasting and card playing with these fine people during the last 15 years of our lives has brought us happiness beyond measure. Joan and I learned square dancing early in our marriage and have enjoyed that recreation in many states.
My war time experiences made me want to improve civil rights, racial and ethnic relationships. I joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) more than forty years ago. Again, this membership has exposed Joan and me to many great individuals and long time friends. A high point of my life has been representing the Ogden NAACP on the Davis County Schools Equity Committee. This school board sanctioned group meets and acts to improve and strengthen the educational experiences of minority and under represented students in one of Utah's largest and most effective school systems.
Like Joan, who died July 14, 2011 I have donated my body to the U of U for study. The Lions/Moran Eye Center has expressed need for my eyes to study macular degeneration. After cremation my desire is that my remains be scattered back to the earth in some serene setting. Like the good Native Americans that I lived and worked with for so many years, I know that we humans came from the earth and should return to the earth.
Published in the Ogden Standard Examiner
Jim Kirkham March 13, 1924 ~ January 28, 2014
Salt Lake City was my birthplace. My father was James Arno Kirkham, born in Lehi, Utah in 1896.
My mother was Sylvia Gene Gudmundsen, born in Iona, Idaho in 1898. The ancestry of my parents goes back to the settling of Utah in the 1850s.
The most fortunate event of my life was meeting Joan Backman while we were students at the University of Utah. Her parents were Ralph and Grace McCullough Backman.
World War II affected me profoundly. My Infantry division trained in Mississippi. The military was segregated and Jim Crow customs were rampant in the South. I experienced combat in France, Germany and Austria. Seeing men that I knew being wounded or killed was hard to accept. Opening several Jewish internment camps set up by the Nazis as we marched through Germany impacted me greatly. I lost all faith in religion. Religion no longer explained things nor answered my questions about the world.
The year of dating and courting Joan at the U of U revealed that we had much in common and that we were compatible philosophically. We were married February 27, 1948.
I graduated in 1949 with a degree in education and started a career that lasted 41 years, most of these years in Bureau of Indian Affairs programs in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Along the way seven wonderful children, each with unique and distinctive personalities, were born into our family. Rex, Ked, Kee and Rob were born in Utah. Jan and Jeff were born on the Navajo reservation in Arizona; Sue was born in New Mexico while we lived at the Santa Fe Indian School.
Friendships have meant so much to Joan and me. Promotions and transfers exposed us to so many wonderful people, many became lifelong friends. Keeping vibrant relationships with relatives and friends has been so gratifying.
I must mention the Wild Bunch Square Dance Club of Ogden, Utah. The dancing, Friendships set to Music, officer meetings, traveling, camping, feasting and card playing with these fine people during the last 15 years of our lives has brought us happiness beyond measure. Joan and I learned square dancing early in our marriage and have enjoyed that recreation in many states.
My war time experiences made me want to improve civil rights, racial and ethnic relationships. I joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) more than forty years ago. Again, this membership has exposed Joan and me to many great individuals and long time friends. A high point of my life has been representing the Ogden NAACP on the Davis County Schools Equity Committee. This school board sanctioned group meets and acts to improve and strengthen the educational experiences of minority and under represented students in one of Utah's largest and most effective school systems.
Like Joan, who died July 14, 2011 I have donated my body to the U of U for study. The Lions/Moran Eye Center has expressed need for my eyes to study macular degeneration. After cremation my desire is that my remains be scattered back to the earth in some serene setting. Like the good Native Americans that I lived and worked with for so many years, I know that we humans came from the earth and should return to the earth.
Published in the Ogden Standard Examiner
Salt Lake City was my birthplace. My father was James Arno Kirkham, born in Lehi, Utah in 1896.
My mother was Sylvia Gene Gudmundsen, born in Iona, Idaho in 1898. The ancestry of my parents goes back to the settling of Utah in the 1850s.
The most fortunate event of my life was meeting Joan Backman while we were students at the University of Utah. Her parents were Ralph and Grace McCullough Backman.
World War II affected me profoundly. My Infantry division trained in Mississippi. The military was segregated and Jim Crow customs were rampant in the South. I experienced combat in France, Germany and Austria. Seeing men that I knew being wounded or killed was hard to accept. Opening several Jewish internment camps set up by the Nazis as we marched through Germany impacted me greatly. I lost all faith in religion. Religion no longer explained things nor answered my questions about the world.
The year of dating and courting Joan at the U of U revealed that we had much in common and that we were compatible philosophically. We were married February 27, 1948.
I graduated in 1949 with a degree in education and started a career that lasted 41 years, most of these years in Bureau of Indian Affairs programs in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Along the way seven wonderful children, each with unique and distinctive personalities, were born into our family. Rex, Ked, Kee and Rob were born in Utah. Jan and Jeff were born on the Navajo reservation in Arizona; Sue was born in New Mexico while we lived at the Santa Fe Indian School.
Friendships have meant so much to Joan and me. Promotions and transfers exposed us to so many wonderful people, many became lifelong friends. Keeping vibrant relationships with relatives and friends has been so gratifying.
I must mention the Wild Bunch Square Dance Club of Ogden, Utah. The dancing, Friendships set to Music, officer meetings, traveling, camping, feasting and card playing with these fine people during the last 15 years of our lives has brought us happiness beyond measure. Joan and I learned square dancing early in our marriage and have enjoyed that recreation in many states.
My war time experiences made me want to improve civil rights, racial and ethnic relationships. I joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) more than forty years ago. Again, this membership has exposed Joan and me to many great individuals and long time friends. A high point of my life has been representing the Ogden NAACP on the Davis County Schools Equity Committee. This school board sanctioned group meets and acts to improve and strengthen the educational experiences of minority and under represented students in one of Utah's largest and most effective school systems.
Like Joan, who died July 14, 2011 I have donated my body to the U of U for study. The Lions/Moran Eye Center has expressed need for my eyes to study macular degeneration. After cremation my desire is that my remains be scattered back to the earth in some serene setting. Like the good Native Americans that I lived and worked with for so many years, I know that we humans came from the earth and should return to the earth.
Published in the Ogden Standard Examiner
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