James H. Graham Jr.

1923 - 2018

James H. Graham Jr., Ret. Staff Sgt. and artist, born March 13, 1923, passed away on Dec 25, 2017 in Sacramento, California. He was 94 years old. He was a longtime resident of East Sacramento after being stationed at Mather Air Force Base in the 1950's. His father was James H. Graham Sr., electrical journeyman and relay scientist. His mother was Evelyn Graham Turner (nee Young) of Cincinnati, Ohio. James was predeceased by wives and children, Sarah Marshburn Graham - U.S.Army, (Jerry Graham), Leola Pearson Graham, Annie Graham (Velkies Graham). He is survived by two children in his marriage with Leola Pearson Graham who are Berdie Brady (Graham), of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Reuben Graham of Sacramento. He is also survived by his last wife, Helen Graham. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, James attended the Harriet Beecher Stowe School which was a progressive school producing the first African American mayor of Cincinnati and De Hart Hubbard the first African American to win a gold medal in the Olympics. James was a child of the depression and held many small jobs after and before school. One job was working for the Jewish superintendent of schools and his family. This job and interaction with this family helped form sympathies and opinions which would re-emerge later in life and affect our upbringing. Instead of hoping to enroll in Julliard school of music which was an impossibility in this era (James was blessed with an operatic voice) he joined the Army after graduating high school. After boot camp he went into the medical field because of his proficiency at lab work in school. He trained to become a medic. On July 7, 1943, he headed to Scotland on the Queen Mary. Soon after arriving and setting up aid stations, he left for Cornwall, England where he stayed until leaving for Normandy. June 1944, he landed on Omaha beach part of the D Day invasion. Medics were walking targets with the crosses on their helmets and carrying no weapons. In his own words, "The whole war was crazy, it was man against man and the Russians were the most brutal." From Normandy they advanced to St. Mere Eglise. The Germans sent bombers overhead and the soldiers were pinned down for 1 1/2 weeks. while in Belgium James was told to take a Jeep and find sleeping quarters. The army was segregated and he was not allowed to sleep amongst the soldiers whose very lives he should save. In Vise, he found a small wooden house where he knocked and asked for room and board in French. The Belgian family residing there took him in. He had two duffel bags - one with dress clothes and another with filled with bloody clothes. The descendants of this family still to this year send a Christmas card to wish him well. He was in the Battle of the Bulge, Battle campaign in Cannes and North Africa and Wereth, Belgium. This last named place was the site of a German massacre of a black battalion whose bodies our father picked up and identified, "'their bodies breaking like ice cubes, barely covered by the snow". The Germans had been in a rush to leave with the allies approaching with P40 aircraft bombers "scared out of their minds" . The colonel who had ordered this execution was later found shot execution style while in his garden chopping wood after the war. Coming to Buchenwald concentration camp in Poland, they found the prisoners delirious and scared to leave. Our father set up medical tents, deloused, treated, and hand-fed the patients. After Hitler's suicide, James convoyed to Germany to treat civilians and soldiers. He also visited Hitler's death site. Returning stateside, he joined the Air Force. He was stationed at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento but didn't stay long. He returned to Europe and chose Italy. There he toured and set up medical stations in Sicily and throughout the south. He loved Italy and the Italians. Once back in the U.S. again, he settled in East Sacramento with his family and worked for the California Youth Authority and retired from there as well as from the military. James was an outdoorsman, keeping us hiking, camping, and prospecting for gold in the mountains every summer. He was active in Immaculate Conception Parish and Sacred Heart Parish where we as children attended. He was an accomplished artist whose paintings grace many homes including his grandkids schools in Greenwich Connecticut and the Obamas. James gave up his spot at Arlington National Cemetery and is buried in his much loved California at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon California. Berdie Graham Brady Reuben Graham.