Oren James King

1927 - 2023

Oren James (Jim) King
February 18, 2023
Fresno, California - Oren James (Jim) King, Jr., a San Joaquin Valley original if there ever was one, died peacefully in mid-February with two daughters at his bedside after leading a full life that checked all the boxes--cowboy, World War II Navy veteran, agricultural entrepreneur, Huntington Lake sailor, model train buff, father of five, grandfather of six, great grandfather to three and, most of all, devoted husband to his late wife, Doris Jean King (nee Graham). He was 95 years old.
"Papa", his family handle once the grandkids started coming, was born in Los Angeles but shortly thereafter the Kings relocated to Fresno. His father was a Fresno County sheriff's detective. His mother was a World War I Army nurse. They met in San Francisco while O.J. senior was on a monthslong stakeout that ended with the capture of a notorious Clovis bank robber, known as "the Owl".
As a teenager, Papa saddled up for the Simpson Brothers outfit, running cattle in the Sierra; this foreshadowed the decades he and Dori would spend as denizens of Huntington Lake. He graduated early from St. John's high school in downtown Fresno to enlist in the Navy at 17, serving aboard the destroyer-minesweeper U.S.S. Davison in World War II. Later, he would attend the University of San Francisco and Fresno State.
Papa was working at a feedlot near Kerman when stricken by the polio virus that swept through the valley in the late 40s and early 50s. The initial prognosis for the robust 20-year-old was not good. But he battled his way back to nearly full mobility, and the nerve damage that lingered in his body seemed only to speed up Papa, rather than slow him down.
"I don't have time to be old," he once told his grandson, James. This was while he was in his mid-70s, and indeed Papa still had a lot of time to go. He didn't waste any of it.
His work selling agricultural equipment and other products took him all over the valley, the state and the West. At one point, he was logging 60,000 miles a year as western regional sales manager for the Thompson Hayward Chemical Company. He possessed a geographical command that allowed him to map from memory seemingly every backroad and blue highway across the West and in particular the valley.
He managed the Fresno County Farm Bureau in the 1960s and later started his own business, the Montecito Trading Company, dealing primarily in used feedlot equipment. Toward the end of his career, he worked as a real estate banker, with an emphasis on easing lower-income families into first homes.
His own first home Papa built by hand in Hanford, while serving as manager of the Kings County Fair. In the 1970s, he rebuilt, again with his own hands, a replacement cabin on Huntington Lake after the original was flattened by heavy snow. Papa didn't do contractors.
In his garage, he created piece by piece, Ebay delivery by Ebay delivery, a massive model train system; he was always thrilled to let the grandkids watch him play with it. Wink. He maintained a robust backyard garden and built and gave away enough custom birdhouses to shelter an avian metropolis. He taught himself to rig out and sail a Catalina class sailboat.
Yet it was family that most defined Papa. In marriage, he and "Granny" were inseparable, so much so that to friends and family Dori-and-Jim came to seem a single word. Though she passed away a decade ago, in his heart, his memory and indeed his very being, they remained as close together as ever.
They raised, and are survived by, five children: Will (spouse Kathy), Jane, Peter (Maura), Keely (Tom) and Mary (Pete). They doted on six grandchildren: Kevin (Mandy), Nate (Emily), Mike, Erin, Mary Ellen (Charles) and James. In his last year, Papa held in his arms Halvor, one of three great-grandchildren.
One more thing about Papa: He spoke in a language all his own, goofy phrases that sometimes required a glossary. Ask him the time, he'd invariably look at his wrist and report, "two hairs past a freckle." He'd never tell anyone to roll up a car window: "Throw a little glass in that hole," was the Papa-ism. A convenience was as "handy as a pocket on a new shirt", and to travel fast was to "come a-whippin' and a-spurrin'." And so on.
To Papa nothing was ever "neat" or "cool"; it was always, always, "slick as sn*t (AKA mucous) on a doorknob"--a coinage that could bring cringes to those not versed in Papa-speak. And finally, when time came for family visitors to return home, say, from a holiday, kids and luggage loaded, Papa's parting command was unfailingly:
"Shove off, coxswain, your boat's loaded"....
Which, as it happened, was what Keely managed to whisper soothingly to Papa in those last days when, his own boat fully loaded with the cargo of a life well lived, he began to sail away.
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The family thanks the caregivers of Nazareth House and A Place Called Home for their tender attention to Papa's needs. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 am, Wednesday, March 15, at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, 355 East Champlain Ave., Fresno. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Building Fund for Divine Mercy Catholic Church (office: 2525 Alluvial Avenue, Clovis, CA, 93611).