May 2019
Jim was born in Berwyn, Illinois. His family moved to Wisconsin for a period then back to Northern Illinois. After high school Jim wanted out of cold winters, salted roads, mud, and freezing rain and had seen New Mexico while train traveling so he moved here.
He attended the University of New Mexico but ‘I wasn’t the best student’. He notes that learning the SW culture after being brought up in the Midwest was an adventure. At UNM he found Joyce and according to Jim it was because he had a 1957 VW convertible and could take fine women on dates. He and Joyce opened a hobby and model shop for a few years. He then went back to UNM and got a degree in Business Management. He contends he learned more actual running a business then he did from reading books.
He joined an engineering firm preparing manuals for the government. They needed a manual for everything from washing a dog to setting up a ladder safely.
Jim and Joyce both had an interest in cars. Get this! They went to sports car races and car shows. Flathead Fords at the time were reasonably priced and parts were available so they gravitated to Fords. Joyce went out and bought a 1940 Ford tudor. Jim was reading Hemmings and saw a new club was developing focused on flathead fords. They quickly joined and were volunteer judges by the early 70’s. They attended their first National meet in Dearborn in 1973.
By this time they had a parts and resale shop for Fords located in downtown Albuquerque. They preferred to pick up New Old Stock (NOS) from closing dealerships. They made a big haul of NOS parts when the Espanola Ford dealership closed. They eventually closed that business but Jim says he still sees his old NOS parts occasionally at garage sales.
While judging Flathead V8 events Jim met and became friends with Bob Lenz, a founder of the National Early Ford V8 Club. Jim and Joyce and a few others were founders of our Tumbleweed Early Ford V8 Club. He recalls the largest membership was about 50 families. Wow, we aren’t doing too bad today as our membership is still about 30 families.
Jim’s favorite Ford was a 1940 coupe. It had column shift and good, actually great, brakes he recalls. Jim has a number of cars in his garage. He wishes he had more space and more garages - duh who doesn’t.
Best wishes to our May member of the month and his lovely wife and let’s get Will back involved so he has something to do the first Tuesday of every month.
