Deceased December 5, 2014
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In Memory
Jim died Dec. 5, 2014, at the age of 87 at his home in Lincoln, Calif. Before finishing high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1945. After discharge, he finished high school and came to Amherst.
After graduation, he worked for a telephone company in San Francisco while earning a law degree at night school at USF. He married Alice Coughlin in 1957, and they raised four children while he practiced law in the San Francisco area.
Environmentally conscious, Jim became active in People for Open Spaces, which eventually merged into the Greenbelt Alliance, to this day advocating and planning open areas between urban developments.
Jim was an active outdoorsman and sportsman. He regularly organized groups for backpacking with his family in Yosemite, and he actively pursued fly fishing in the Sierras, tennis at the Cal club, skiing at Squaw Valley and golf at the Presidio. He was also a leader of Boy Scout Troop 14 in San Francisco.
A man of deep compassion and empathy, Jim devoted much time to the less fortunate. In his final years he regularly delivered communion to homebound parishioners of the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lincoln. He is survived by four children and nine grandchildren.
Dick Snodgrass ’51