Jim and I spent quite a lot of time together during the summer of 1969. At that time, I had finished two years of college (due to early high school graduation) and was home for the summer and working at the Sunlite Convalescent Center on Badillo. He had finished his freshman year at Caltech. He saw me walking home from work one day and gave me a ride home. After that we just kind of hung out together for the rest of the summer. Jim was going through an emotionally transformative time that summer, having realized that there was more to life than academics and technology. He was struggling to be more emotional and sensitive and it was not an easy change for him. We spent a lot of time talking about life in general and were good company for each other during that summer. He came up to Provo and visited me some time during the next school year and we had a nice time then. We communicated sporadically through that year. At the end of the school year, I got married, and my communication with Jim was less frequent. Several years later he had some business in Salt Lake City. My husband and I lived in Spanish Fork then, so we met up and went to dinner with Jim. By that time, MS was affecting his health and mobility quite a bit. I didn’t see him again until one of our reunions—maybe the twentieth? At that time he was in a wheelchair and was very thin. We lost contact after that. My mother kept in touch with Covina people after my parents moved to Utah in 1983, and it was she who heard that Jim had passed away. I was living in Vermont then.
Leanne Bryan (Bedell)
Jim and I spent quite a lot of time together during the summer of 1969. At that time, I had finished two years of college (due to early high school graduation) and was home for the summer and working at the Sunlite Convalescent Center on Badillo. He had finished his freshman year at Caltech. He saw me walking home from work one day and gave me a ride home. After that we just kind of hung out together for the rest of the summer. Jim was going through an emotionally transformative time that summer, having realized that there was more to life than academics and technology. He was struggling to be more emotional and sensitive and it was not an easy change for him. We spent a lot of time talking about life in general and were good company for each other during that summer. He came up to Provo and visited me some time during the next school year and we had a nice time then. We communicated sporadically through that year. At the end of the school year, I got married, and my communication with Jim was less frequent. Several years later he had some business in Salt Lake City. My husband and I lived in Spanish Fork then, so we met up and went to dinner with Jim. By that time, MS was affecting his health and mobility quite a bit. I didn’t see him again until one of our reunions—maybe the twentieth? At that time he was in a wheelchair and was very thin. We lost contact after that. My mother kept in touch with Covina people after my parents moved to Utah in 1983, and it was she who heard that Jim had passed away. I was living in Vermont then.