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James Frederick Claybourn Second Child of Orley Frank Claybourn 6 August 1925 - 3 November 2004 James Frederick Claybourn (known as "Jim") was born on 6 August 1925 in Nashville, Tennessee. Of his childhood, Jim said, "I was spoiled. I was a late arrival; I think my dad was pleased as punch to have a son in his advanced age. Mother was disappointed because she just wanted a daughter so bad, which attests to the five pictures they have of me in a dress with long, blonde curly locks. It shows her disappointed that I was a boy instead of a girl." Although much of Jim's childhood occurred in the Great Depression, he often remarked that children of railroad workers - like him - were relatively better off than most at the time. But three days before Christmas in 1938, when Jim was just 13 years old, his father passed away from pneumonia. "From then on my life went in a completely 180 degree different direction," he said. Throughout high school Jim worked hard - year round - without thoughts of going to college, especially after World War II had started. In a 2003 interview, he remarked, "I didn't think about going to college, I didn't prepare to go to college, I didn't know about . . . the GI Bill of Rights that would let me go to college so I took all of the easiest courses that I could get to get through high school because I knew I'd go through the draft." Jim graduated from Reitz High School in 1942. Rolland Eckels, a classmate in Jim's high school homeroom, remarked that he clearly remembers Jim being one of the shortest students in the class his freshman and sophomore year, yet by the time he left the Air Force at the age of 21, Jim was 6 feet tall and weighed 146 pounds. Thus, for his generation, Jim had grown to be a tall and skinny man. World War II Jim entered military service on 27 November 1943 at the age of eighteen. He was a Sergeant with the 24th Combat Mapping Squadron of the Thirteenth Air Force Base Unit, stationed in Karachi, India. Jim stated that his crew had flunked out of bombardment training so they were sent to Oklahoma City for training before taking off to India. Their plane, called the "Nosie Rosie," was an F-7A, a variant of the four engine B-24 Liberator. The B-24 is the most produced U.S. military aircraft in history. Pictures of the Nosie Rosie are available here and here.
Jim's squadron made maps of a busy aerial highway - called the "Hump" - which stretched from India to China, over the eastern Himalayas and some of the world's tallest mountains. Jim served as a photographer and gunner. The "Hump" was a crucial route to ferrying supplies to the Chinese Army so it could stay in the fight against Japan. He noted that they virtually never saw combat, saying, "It was like being on vacation because the Japanese couldn't take off from their bases in Burma because their airfields had been bombed." However on one occassion their crew's navigator wanted to see what Myitkyina, the capital city of Burma (now called Myanmar), looked like. Therefore the navigator routed one flight close to it, resulting in the plane getting shot at from the ground with "ack-ack" (anti-aircraft fire), which Jim described as "very invigorating." After serving roughly 13 months in the States, and 15 months overseas, Jim was discharged on 17 April 1946. He received the Asiatic-Pacific and American Theater ribbons, three bronze stars, and the Victory medal. Throughout his life Jim kept meticulous records and statistics, whether it be for his personal life or his favorite sports teams. The War was no exception, of course, and he kept a detailed diary of his time in the military. The diary was transcribed by his daughter Jennie; click here to read book one covering 6 Dec. 1943 - 31 Dec. 1944 (pdf) and click here to read book two covering 1 Jan. 1945 - 28 March 1946 (pdf). Putting Down Roots After the War Jim immersed himself in the westside community of Evansville, Indiana, and increased his involvement at Howell United Methodist Church. Growing up Jim never particularly cared for church, but upon returning from the War he discovered that he missed it. "It made a ... I feel like ... a profound change in my life. I didn't want to miss the activities, or the interaction, between the people and the neighbors and the relatives that I met at church. It was kind of like a huge extended family." Along with Jim's immediate family, a number of other Claybourns attended Howell. Jim would carry on the tradition and served on the church's Board of Trustees, taught Sunday School, sang in the choir, was President of the Methodist Men's Club, sponsored Methodist Youth Fellowship, and coached the church basketball team. Soon after returning home from the War Jim also continued another tradition begun by his father and brother by joining Reed Lodge No. 316 of Free & Accepted Masons. He was initiated on 18 Dec. 1946, passed on 3 Feb. 1947 and raised on 12 April 1947. He remained an active member of the lodge his entire adult life, serving as Worshipful Master in 1980 and Treasurer from 1983-1998. The lodge meant so much to him that when his son and grandson also joined the same lodge many years later, he had to fight back tears of joy. Jim was also heavily involved in a related organization called the Hadi Shrine Temple. Each year the Shriners produced a circus in Evansville, and Jim would frequently assist and/or lead such undertakings. Family Life
For 24 years Jim worked at Burch Plow Works, a manufactuer of "True Blue" farm implements, where he served as a traffic and shipping manager. He remarked, "I was . . . very happy with my position and with the people that I worked with; happy as a hog in slop." Eventually though, at the insistence of Betty Jean, he transfered to work at Shawnee Plastics as a personnel manager, apparently hired to that role because he was a "good mixer, and that's what a personnel manager needs to be." Jim and Betty would remain married for over twenty years and had three children together, all listed below. But eventually their relationship soured. As Jim would often put it, "we were married for 20 years, and happily married for 18." They divorced in 1969. At the time Jim was taking night classes at Evansville College (now the University of Evansville) and making progress toward a degree. Following the divorce his interest in the degree dissipated and he eventually dropped out. When reflecting back on his life, Jim often remarked that failing to prepare for college was one of his biggest regrets.
In her Jim found, in his words, "my soul mate." Both had a certain humility and wit that complimented each other well. And perhaps just as important, Betty Lou did more than just tolerate Jim's numerous passions; she encouraged them. His family embraced Betty Lou as one of their own, and she warmly welcomed the role. On 6 April 1993 she died of a heart attack, a loss that Jim never really fully recovered from. Years later he remarked to one grandchild, "There isn't a day that goes by without me thinking of her, wishing she was still here." Some time after going to work for Shawnee Plastics the company moved to Kuttawa, Kentucky, which Jim regarded as "the pits of the universe to me at that time." Thus he left Shawnee Plastics and took a job with National Furniture as personnel manager, and once that company left town he sold insurance for a short while. After that Jim went to work for Reis Tire, remaining there until his retirement. On 5 April 2000, Jim married (3rd) Nema Lou (Dicken) Haun, who was born on 18 June 1930 in Clinton, Indiana. Nema was a Methodist, a Republican and a Purdue fan. Jim, a lifelong Indiana Univ. fan, noted, "Two out of three ain't bad." Nema's grace and tender care helped comfort him through his battles with cancer which ultimately claimed his life on 3 November 2004. Thereafter Nema moved back north to a suburb of Indianapolis to live with her twin sister Norma. Loyal to the End
As I made my way down the stairs to the gym floor, during an all-school assembly my senior year, I noticed, just before everyone else, that my coach had invited my parents and Grandpa to be there with me to receive the Kiwanis Award. I know that I saw my family just before the rest of the school, because two seconds after Grandpa was visible, ambling slowly but confidently out of the tunnel onto the gym floor, the shouting started. "Hey, Grandpa!" "Grandpa’s here!" and other cheers were heard from many throughout the students until Grandpa acknowledged his adoring public by simply raising his right hand. At this point the place erupted. Teenagers were standing, clapping, and yelling for him. After a bit, when the loudest cheers died down, a smaller group started chanting, "Grandpa Claybourn, clap, clap, clap-clap-clap..." This spread throughout the student body, until everyone, nearly 2,000 kids, were involved. Grandpa continued on his way and took his seat near the podium at center court. The athletic director approached the podium and prepared to address the students, but it was still too loud. He motioned with his hands for everyone to calm down, but it only got louder. After a few more seconds, Grandpa used the same motion and the crowd reluctantly obeyed.Jim relished his role as, in his words, the family's "aging patriarch with a few screws loose." An old classmate of Jim's described him this way: "He liked to argue just for the hell of it, but always in a good-natured, light-hearted way that immediately made you smile." At his funeral the Reitz fight song was played, and as his hearse made its way to his final resting place at Memorial Park Mausoleum, it made one final lap around the Reitz High School grounds. Fiercely loyal to the end, Jim would have it no other way.
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Jim had passionate loyalties for certain institutions - among them Howell UMC, the Masonic Lodge, Indiana Univ. and Reitz H.S. - which he would support with zeal until the day he died. His allegiance to Reitz was so strong that he very rarely missed their football games, and even included a game in his first honeymoon with Betty Jean. He frequently volunteered with many of the school's athletic teams, and when two of his grandsons, J.P. and Brian, played football, basketball and soccer for Reitz, he was adopted as a grandfather of sorts for all of the teams' players. His grandson J.P. tells of one incident which captures Jim's characteristic wit and popularity: