A Man Named Jim by Edie Holdgrafer

A MAN NAMED JIM

James Henry Holdgrafer was born in Webster City , Iowa on June 24, 1933. He was the second born child of John Anton Holdgrafer and Grace Irene Miner . 3 girls and 3 boys. Margaret, was the oldest. Jim was next, followed by Florence, Dorothy, Butch and Denny. He learned so much as a young man doing all kinds of odd jobs, driving tractors, trucks and even helped to build his parents home. Back in Iowa, there is weather problems of tornado’s, so all houses have big full size basements. Theirs was 2 bedroom and laundry room in the basement and all the other living rooms plus 2 bedrooms and bathroom were upstairs. During weather warnings, they would go down into the basement till it was clear again. It was a good life and Jim endured and loved every bit of it.

He had a zest for work and play. He raced in some of the first stock cars to come upon America’s sports to love, and farmed and did so many things around the farm, that anybody knew he could do anything that came along. He went into the U.S Air Force in l953 until l960. He also got married sometime in these years. He had 4 sons and 1 daughter and being in the service put a real strain on his marriage. That is why he chose to leave the service at 7 years instead of carrying on with it to career status. He still continued to do as much as he could to keep his family above board in life and they lived in Victorville and Apple Valley California with horses and a good country life. Jim always was more comfortable in cowboy boots, levi’s , cowboy shirts and even a straw cowboy hat. Riding and trimming horses was his real love. He even worked for Roy Rogers’ riding stable at the Apple Valley Inn. He took people out on horseback rides in the desert. He dearly loved it. He split from his wife after 17 years and she had remarried.

He went back to Iowa and was working back there, when Johnny, one of his sons went back there to work with his dad. Jim brought him back out to California, in his truck and ended up breaking his knee by stepping down off a horse wrong. It kept him flat and some good people took pity upon him and helped him. He lost his truck over not having a job to send payments, but he paid those nice people back by being a bartender and cook for the man who owned the apartments and the bar he ended up working in, even though he was on crutches. THE LONG HORN BAR. That is where one day I walked in after my cashier shift at the 76 Truck stop about 9:30a.m. where I had my kids already gone to school and I stopped for a cup of coffee, and a breakfast coffee-cake before heading home to the empty house and trying to go to sleep. Jim was wiping down the bar and his boss and the boss’ wife were at the pool tables and said to Jim: “Hey Jim, come play with us some pool, and asked me if I would be Jim’s pool partner,” I answered, that “I was not a very good pool player”, and His boss said “that is ok. Maybe that way, I can win him!” Jim and I hit it off together right away, and we were together for 26 years. I mean to say 26 unforgettable, wonderful years. I immediately took him to a doctor and they operated and fixed his knee.

He was the kindest, most easy to get along with person I had ever met and I felt like the luckiest person in the world, with him in my life. He never had a bad word to say about anyone. Any problem could be talked out and solved. He was always the smiley one. He loved to talk. And talk we did for 26 years. His family fell right into the groove with my 6 boys and we breezed back and forth living in different places, with the kids marrying and doing their own thing as they turned of age. We were all together in a motel in Riverside. Jim and I managed and almost bought, except I became ill and had to quit work for a while.. We went back to Iowa and stayed a couple years in which I worked at the truck stop and the boys all worked there too, either in the kitchen as cook and dishwasher, or out on the gas islands. I don’t quite remember why, but then, back to Riverside to rent a farm -house in Riverside. All the boys’ slept in a bunkhouse, outside the main house that was a small 2bedroom house. It had room for rabbits, chickens, horses, a mule, and we had it all. Even a guinea hen to warn us of strangers, and a delightful Australian shepherd named Lady. Life was great. We would drive around and Jim would offer to do any odd jobs including trimming horses etc. The kids would work with Jim, go buy groceries, cigarettes, and a little beer and cokes and we would happily go home and either watch t.v. or chat outside on the shady patio in the summertime. We named it “THE LAZY H RANCH” and the boys’ painted the truck red and white and we put Jim and Edie on the doors and Lazy H Ranch and phone number on it and we got a lot of attention wherever we went. All surrounding that ranch was a church on one opposite corner and houses all around. Some property owners put a bid on that 3 acres and we were asked to move for them to sell it. They tore it up and put in a lot of apartments. I imagine people missed us when we moved for people would stop in front of our house to watch the activities, like Lady slapping a bowling ball along a path, picking it us with her front teeth and carrying it back to the beginning and doing the slapping along the path over and over again. People also stopped to see the horses and talk to us when we were out riding the horses. Jim and I were out one day on 2 of the horses and I was not a very good horse rider and the horse named Cinders took off across a highway with me and luckily there was no traffic to hit us. I rode the other horse, named Jamie home and as I got dumped off that horse and Jim laughed, stepped off of Cinders and let it follow the other one that was galloping away ahead of us. He walked with me and we went several blocks before we found where the horses had found a couple of young men and they were having a ball riding them around on a vacant lot. We recaptured the hooves and took them home. After that I got a huge old horse and never fell off of him even though he would start up hill and gallop along till he reached the top. We named him Colonel. He was so big I fit perfectly in his saddle. We also had a miniature horse named Trinket . Jim was taking a lady named Sharon to horse shows and she had several miniature horses. One night at the auction I was walking around by myself and happened to go by the stable they were having an auction. I thought it was a nice sellable pony I raised my hand to buy for $35.00. Boy did I get razzed forever on that one. It turned out to be a mule. I would come home from work at midnight and that donkey would start in with its’ braying and I had to hurry indoors and grab something out of the refrigerator and run it out to give to her to shut her up. Course she made noise 3 or 4 times , so I got so I carried stuff in the car, and I could reach down , run out and give it to her before she would build up to bray for the first time. A cinch. Ha ha. I don’t want to talk about what happened to this poor animal, but --- the family knows!! Jim and I worked together in several jobs over the years. Bartending, cooking, managing apartments buildings and anything where we could be partners together. Life was sweet and even though it was hard, Jim always had his smiles and sweet disposition and loved life every day of his life.

He had a saying.
IF IT HURT TO DO IT -----DON,T DO IT--THAT WAS HIS MOTTO
LIFE ISN’T HOW MUCH SCHOOLIN YOU HAD-- LIFE WAS HOW YOU LIVED YOUR LIFE FROM DAY TO DAY
AND NOT HURT OTHERS BUT TO HELP OTHERS AS WELL AS YOURSELVES!!!!!!

Yes. I think people in that area missed us a lot and most likely wish the old ranch, was still there, instead of the apartments that are now there. I know I will never forget the wonderful memories of life on the Lazy H Ranch. Then we moved to a piece of property with a lot for horses in Fontana, Calif. We put up a big white fence and improved that property as well. We still carried the name of Lazy H Ranch then, but the boys were very unhappy living there, being assaulted every time they walked down the street to the main street in that town. Bad people lived there, but out of living there, the twins found their niche in truck driving for Mendoza Trucking. it was not long till we left our sheep and some of our possessions to sell with a friend and left to Iowa once again. Jim had gone a couple weeks before us to secure a place , so I drove and hauled what we could and had one terrible trip with a blowout of a tire along the way. In some far out place along the way out in the middle of nowhere, all we had was flashlights and could not find the jack to jack up the wheel. We had the tire on the back of the truck but Ben had packed the jack forward and we had to get on the c.b. radio and ask for help.We just put a spotlight on the wheel and were spooked with all kinds of scorpions coming at us and we were lucky that a nice man stopped and helped us and we continued a terrible trip where the steering on the truck was to the breaking point, though I did not know how bad until we got there and Jim checked it out. It was only holding by a thread. But we made it. Ye Ha, as Jim said. Boy, we were so crowded and drove non stop for about 36 hours to get there, we almost kissed the ground on our knees. This trip back to Iowa landed us in the outskirts of Stratford, Iowa and Jim and the boys went to work for a factory of farm equipment named Ruben Lundberg Co. They all learned much there again. Driving , repair, painting you name it they learned it. As Jim would say, “A little bit of experience helps to go a long way.” The kids started hitting 17 18, and going there own ways and one by one they left for the service along the way of our trek back and forth everywhere.


We ended up living so many different places, Jim and I working in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jim worked the Pioneer Club, the one with the cowboy waving up on top the roof. I worked as a shill in a gambling hall across the street. He greeted and handed out tickets to the people and was a shining personable HOST and having a drawing every hour to give out prizes. He loved working in western costumes, which he wore anyway but really felt at home there in the gambling casino. He loved drinking and we just loved living there. Times were great. We moved on up to Sacramento in l982 and did apartment managing there for several years, going to Kansas City , to manage a complex our property management was going to buy. They paid our way back there and we were stranded because they did not buy it. Jim and I were stuck and ended up working the complex for that existing owner until he lost it in bankruptcy and we continued to empty it for the new owners. As soon as it was emptied of all tenants, we were let go with a nice bonus that brought us back again to Sacramento.

Before long in 1985 my daughters came back into my life after me not seeing them for 40 years and Jim wanted me to know my daughter, so we went up to Anchorage, Alaska and Jim was a Night Watchman with a badge and gun. I worked in the Captain Cook Hotel, which was a huge one stop layover for movie stars and ultra rich who were traveling oversees. The Hotel had everything. It was like to a shopping mall these days. Clothing stores, dry cleaners, restaurant, cocktail with other entertainment. Everything the people staying over could want to while away the time before their trip elsewhere. Jim would come sometimes at my lunch time and we would squeeze lunch in together. He also had a good time talking and meeting people and Tracey would go with him once in a while to the bar and introduce him around. We left Alaska to go once again to Sacramento. Then once again we left and went up to Reno. It did not last long and back once more to Oroville. This time to buy a trailer and live in an acreage that Ben owned. He lived with Debbie and she had three very nice children Jim liked so much. Jim broke his heel, shoving it up into his ankle. He had surgery but was disabled and started getting disability, but it took 3 different bunch of paperwork over three years for him to be approved for social security disability. In that time, we moved the trailer down to Sacramento to a nice trailer park and we loved our playing cards across the little table in the front
part of the trailer and we had taken the top bunk in back to make a shelf to put the big television. We really enjoyed living there and we met some nice friends there that Jim really enjoyed. He would smoke and drink with this one man named Hank and I would go to bingo and all around. Jim was in 7th heaven wherever he was comfortable and he was cooped up and comfortable with me in that little 17 ft. Trailer. Before long I hit 62 and retired and our income together gave us a real good ability to do lots of things together and we really enjoyed each other to the utmost.

Jim had lots of friends, having run into Bob Hermes one day in the truck, each stopping along side each other while Jim motioned to him to stop and asked him if he knew where he could get some chicken shit and Bob said Is rabbit shit ok? Follow me, I do have rabbits. They were buddies for many years. He also kept up seeing his friend Hank until Hank died from his drinking a couple years later. The fun Jim had was just talking about old times and right now, with me doing this writing, I wish I would have written down all the wonderful things that were talked about.

Casey asked us to come live with him, for he thought our living in that little trailer was too restrictive for us and he was unhappy with the ones he lived with and kept getting disappointed and thought that way he could help be there for us both. We moved in together and things worked out great. Jim had some quality years to follow but started getting more breathless toward 1993, so we moved from one apartment that had upstairs bedrooms to climb stairs to get to, that started affecting Jim, by his having to stop and get his breath every couple steps. We moved into a nice 3 bedroom house with a den. We could enjoy watching television, which Jim absolutely loved, and we’d sit right in the kitchen and watch t.v. all the time, never sitting in the living room. He could still drive and he’d go visit his friends Bob and Hank. He loved life as long as he had his beer and cigarettes.

Me too! We lived next door to my dear friend Anne, who was Jim’s daughter Berneta’s mother in law. Anne took care of Berneta’s son Bobby on a permanent basis. One day I had trouble with my heart and I had clogged arteries in my legs and was in a wheel chair. He wheeled me over next door and he went back home again. It was 1995. I was there with Anne and he did not come back like he was supposed to and finally Anne wheeled me home and we found Jim laying unconscious on the floor. He had hit his head and it was bloody. The first thing I looked for was if he was breathing as I called 911 and got the ambulance there to rush him off to the hospital. I did that from just a few months before when he was drunk and fell and hit his head in the hall and was not breathing and Casey, having been a paramedic previously in his working world, resuscitated him and got him breathing again, though Jim was in the hospital for a while. This time he was breathing when he was put into the ambulance, but before they reached the hospital, he stopped breathing and they resuscitated him and put him on life support. He had done some terrible damage on both sides of his brain, and they did surgery to repair it as best they could. But he was on life support, and they pronounced him dead but before they would take him off life support, some smart technician or nurse noticed he responded to water dropped on him and they quickly got him breathing again. We were all much relieved because they had done last rites on him and a pastor was with us at the moment they came saying he was breathing again and was not dead. Believe it or not, with his caved in head, he went on another 6 years to give his hearty smile and good personality too. During this time I had a 5 way Bypass surgery to my heart and we nursed each other to get well again. I sure was glad Bea and Casey were there to help with this. What a trauma, but Jim was just fine and he slowed down his drinking and things went well and Jim gave his all right up to the last with his lungs shutting down. He was happy with his family and life and never complained about anything but the pain he was suffering on a constant basis all his life. He had an electric wheel chair for the last few years of his life and still then he loved traveling around in it. In the final months he was put on Hospice, where people came to the house to check on him, but at the final time of real trauma he was taken to the hospital. In the hospital he was allowed to be put on an I V and be put gracefully in a sleeping condition, in order to be relaxed enough to let death take him. He died peacefully, out of pain.


I sleep right beside his picture, where I talk to him and tell him how much he meant to me all of our days together and wished it would still be going on. I tell him. I love you Jim, and I miss you so much. I will be joining you soon as God is willing. You have been a real blessing in my life and all who have known you.
Your loving wife Edie and family; you helped grow
and learn from you.
Jimmy, Johnny, Bea, Ben, Matt, Tim, Glenn, Les, Wes, Bart, Casey
Enjoy all your many friends and family who have gone
before you.
And save room for us all by your side.

COWBOY JIM
GONE NOW, THIS SWEET MAN; FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN ABOVE.
LEAVING LOVED ONES HERE, WITH SWEET MEMORIES OF LOVE.
YOUR TEACHINGS AND LOVE FOR ALL OF US, WILL STAY DOWN DEEP INSIDE
IN OUR HEARTS, OUR DEEP LOVE FOR YOU; WILL FOREVER, THERE ABIDE.
WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HAPPY SMILES UPON YOUR SWEET FACE
ALL THE THINGS YOU DID; WE WERE AMAZED AT HOW WELL YOU KEPT THE PACE
YOU DID SOME REALLY WONDEROUS THINGS, THAT NOT EVERYONE GETS TO DO;
LIKE WORKING FOR ROY ROGERS AND TRIMMING AND RIDING HORSES TOO.
THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD NOT HAVE DONE, IF IT CAME YOUR WAY.
WE WILL ALWAYS KEEP YOU SPECIAL IN OUR HEARTS EVERY SINGLE DAY.
REST IN PEACE, NOW. GOOD MAN, FOR YOU HAVE EARNED YOUR PLACE TO BE.
WHERE YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT AND SEE EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO SEE.
LOVE FOR YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN MY HEART
REST IN PEACE, MY SWEETHEART
YOUR LOVING WIFE OF 26 YEARS
RIDE EM, COWBOY, HOPE IT’S ON SPARKY! 27 YEARS
I WILL KEEP COUNTING TOO, UNTIL I, TOO; JOIN YOU EDIE



THERE’S A VERY GOOD MAN, NAMED JIM
THE ONLY THING HE CAN’T DO; IS SWIM.
HE HELPED TO BUILD HIS PARENT’S HOME.
WITH A HARD JOB TO DO, HE’D NEVER ROAM.
HE SERVED HIS COUNTRY IN THE AIR FORCE,
FOR ALL HIS HARD WORK, HE SHOWS NO REMORSE.
HE WORKED FOR ROY ROGERS ---HE’S SO PROUD OF THAT
WHEN SURROUNDED BY COMPANY, HE LOVES TO CHAT.
HE TALKS OF THE OLD DAYS, GONE LONG AGO
IF ASKED FOR A FAVOR, HE IS READY TO GO
FOR ALL HIS GOOD DEEDS, ALL HE WANTS IS A THANKS
HIS FAMILY HOLDS HIM IN THE HIGHEST OF RANKS.
SURVIVING TWICE THE FALLS ON HIS HEAD
THE PATH OF LIFE, IS THE PATH HE WILL TREAD
WITH THE GOAL TO LIVING, HE REALLY THRIVES
HE IS DEFINITELY CALLED THE
CAT WITH NINE LIVES.
TEN LIVES
ELEVEN LIVES
TWELVE LIVES
AND NOW THIRTEEN LIVES
LOVE YOU NINE TIMES FOREVER, AND STILL COUNTING
YOUR LOVING WIFE; EDIE, AND FAMILY 3/4/97














WE MISS YOU JIM
A YEAR HAS GONE; COUNT THE DAYS. IMPOSSIBLE, YOU SAY?
HOW CAN IT BE POSSIBLE WITH SO MANY TEARS ALONG THE WAY?
THERE ARE ENOUGH TO FLOAT A BOAT: LIKE IN THE DAYS OF NOAH.
ONLY THE TEARS, THIS TIME, WILL NEVER STOP:
OVER YEARS MANY MORE WILL FOLLOW.
EACH TEAR SAYS, “I MISS YOU SO, AND WISH YOU STILL WERE HERE.
WE’D ALL JUST LOVE TO SIT WITH YOU: AROUND A TABLE;
JUST TO CHAT AND DRINK SOME BEER.”
SIGNED: ANYBODY AND EVERYBODY
WHO EVER KNEW YOU!

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

This is back when it all began
We all wish it still were here
Those wonderful days with family
And friends visiting and drinking beer
Oh, What Good Times We had
In those, The Good Old Days
We hoped they would last forever
We’d work very hard and then Laze
Such good memories, we all have
Of times when we were all together
We’d ride horses, feed chicks, and
Do odd jobs to make our home life better
We all remember the work and play
With friends and loved one along the way
As each one grew up and went their own way
The years did pass
FULL OF LOVE EACH AND EVERY DAY
C2002


COWBOY JIM


GONE NOW, THIS SWEET MAN; FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN ABOVE.
LEAVING LOVED ONES HERE, WITH SWEET MEMORIES OF LOVE.
YOUR TEACHINGS AND LOVE FOR US, WILL STAY DOWN DEEP INSIDE.
IN OUR HEARTS, OUR LOVE FOR YOU; WILL FOREVER, THERE ABIDE.
WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HAPPY SMILES UPON YOUR SWEET FACE
ALL THE THINGS YOU DID; WE WERE AMAZED AT HOW YOU KEPT PACE.
YOU DID SOME REALLY WONDROUS THINGS NOT EVERYONE GETS TO DO;
WORKING FOR ROY ROGERS AND TRIMMING AND RIDING HORSES TOO.
THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD NOT AVE DONE IF IT CAME YOUR WAY.
WE WILL ALWAYS KEEP YOU SPECIAL; IN OUR HEARTS EVERY SINGLE DAY.
REST IN PEACE, NOW. GOOD MAN,
FOR YOU HAVE EARNED YOUR PLACE TO BE.
WHERE YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT
AND SEE EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO SEE.

LOVE FOR YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN MY HEART
REST IN PEACE, MY SWEETHEART;

RIDE EM, COWBOY, HOPE IT’S ON SPARKY!
EDIE 5/2000