James Thurman Bohart
Obituary
Jim Bohart (James Thurman, named
for both his father and his paternal grandfather) reluctantly left his family
behind to enter the Great Cosmos on 4/7/2017, with his best friend and wife,
Joy, and his daughter Sarah by his side. Jim grew up in Hawaii, attended Punahou
School, New Mexico Military Institute, and graduated from the University of
Arizona in Economics. After a short stay in Greenwich, Connecticut, as a stock
broker and day trader, he fled to Texas, a state more his style, with his then
wife, Jean Powers. He and his wife settled in Farmers Branch, a suburb of
Dallas, where his two children were born, and where he invited his close friends
to come live with his family, (provided they were fans of the Dallas Cowboys.)
He "played the Market" for years, loving his success in buying stock
and selling it before it came back to slam him, loved games of pool with his
live-in friends and family, fishing with his uncle Jimmy Goodner, swimming on
his estate with the children, reading (he was a voracious reader and left behind
an extensive library of fiction), and shooting and skinning the squirrels who
dared to fool with his pecan orchard. His constant outdoor companion was his
faithful dog Sam. During this time, his beloved wife Jean died in a freak
accident in Mexico, an occurrence that nearly destroyed him.
Distraught, he eventually moved to Poway, CA, near his parents. In time,
fate brought him Joy Nigro, a person whose name illustrated her temperament and
who became his wife, salvation, and soul mate.
Jim was a big guy, affectionate,
trusting, affable, adventuresome, but prone to altercations (his jaw was broken
twice in traffic brawls). He was completely unprejudiced---his Mexican gardener
Tino was his buddy, and he loved to drive down to Mexico for the food and the
atmosphere. As a child, he grew up in Honolulu at Fort Shafter, a sprawling
military base in Kalihi, a very rough part of Honolulu at that time. Kids were
free to wander barefoot throughout the post and the surrounding hills, and Jim
and his friends discovered old military foxholes dug during the war, narrowly
missed being gored by wild boars they actually tried to trap, and dammed up the
post creek when rainfall was low. During these pre-teen years, he was always
interested in making money. He caught fan-tailed guppies in the streams on post
and sold the fish to the generals on Palm Drive, once interrupting a cocktail
party where he was invited in to sell his fish to the high-ranking guests. He
found "lost" golf balls in the gully running through the golf course,
selling them at the door of the clubhouse, often to the chuckling men who had
lost them. He collected empty glass
coke bottles from the neighbors and sold them back to the Chinese grocer just
outside the post gates for the deposit, a daring trip for a blonde "haole"
kid in a rough neighborhood of young gangs ("bla-las", colloquially).
Free and independent as a boy,
Jim grew up an individualist. He found books early on and was exceptionally
well-read. Though he had a sharp memory, he often forgot dates and was late to
everything, but he was true to his convictions. He was utterly unpretentious and
always honest. He despised having to "dress up", and would go nearly
everywhere in his cut-offs and baggy T-shirts. He was the "natural
man".
Our Jim was one-of-a-kind. He
was tall at 6'2", but his huge hands were most remarkable. He hated shoes,
probably because his feet were too big, and consistently wore his faithful
rubber slippers. His love of children and sports led him to coach girls' and
boys' baseball games for years in Jim among us for 77 years, we will always feel
the force of his sweet, faithful, and independent nature.
Jim was predeceased by his first
wife, Jean Powers Bohart of Greenwich, CT; by his brother, Daniel Willard Bohart
of Wilmington, NC.; his mother, Helen Peck Bohart and father, James Philip
Bohart of Rancho Bernardo, CA; and faithful Sam, his magnificent German
Shepherd.
He is survived by his wife, Joy
Marie Nigro of the home; his daughter Bobbi Bohart of Chapel Hill, NC; son,
Jimmy of Austin, TX; and step-daughters, Robin and Sarah Nigro; his sister, Jo
Lou of Surfside Beach, SC; his brother, Gregory of Rancho Bernardo, CA; his
nieces Nicki Bloomer, Lissa Bloomer, Brittany Bacharach, Courtney Bohart, and
Hayley Bohart, nephew, Bo Bloomer, and new canine companion, Shaniqua.