James Edward Arnold

James Edward Arnold, age 90, of Fairfax, Virginia passed away on Sunday, December 12, 2021. James was born October 2, 1931. Jim was born at home on Delavan Avenue in Buffalo, New York on October 2, 1931. He was the youngest child and the first to be born in the U.S., his family having emigrated from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He grew up on Marne Road in the Buffalo township of Cheektowaga, NY, a short walk from Pine Hill School which he attended for twelve years from first grade through high school. Growing up, he developed a love of literature and sports, particularly baseball. He especially enjoyed keeping baseball statistics and did so all his life. An offshoot of this interest was inventing sports related board games and Jim created many tabletop games played with family and friends.

Jim joined the Navy at age 17 and because he recognized the coming impact of television, chose electronics for his training, which determined his career in life. He served on the USS Luzon during the Korean War, spending time in Norfolk, San Diego, Long Beach, San Francisco, Japan, and of course Korea. After his discharge from the Navy in 1953, Jim returned to Buffalo and became a technical writer at Bell Aircraft in Niagara Falls. The following year, he moved to Orlando, Florida to work with his brother operating and repairing kiddie rides. A year later he found work at Southeast Electronics installing emergency vehicle radios and setting up radio towers. Jim returned to Buffalo to enroll in college at the University of Buffalo in 1956, finding work as a timekeeper. During this period, he studied German and sang with a local church choir. After his parents took a trip to California that summer, the entire family began planning their move out West, where San Diego State College accepted Jim’s electronics school class credits. He graduated in 1960 with a degree of Bachelor of Arts With Honors With Distinction in English. In 1959, Jim’s life was changed forever and for the best, when on a blind date, he met his beautiful future wife, Terri. They were married on Valentine’s Day 1960 and had 57 years of adventure, laughter, and love. Terri worked for an insurance company and Jim was a technical writer. They intended to start married life with extended Europe travel, but decided a family was more important and had three boys, David, Kevin, and Glenn. The 60’s and 70’s were spent raising their family in San Diego. Jim changed jobs to the Cubic electronics corporation where he stayed for 17 years. He then changed jobs to the Linkabit Corporation and transferred to Virginia where they lived the rest of their lives. They finally began their Europe travels in 1985 and went there over a dozen times, most frequently England. They never traveled as tourists, but immersed themselves, and readily made many lifelong friends.

After Terri’s Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis in 1989 progressed and she suffered a traumatic brain injury, Jim became her caregiver for many years, and he did it with love and amazing internal strength. Their last years together were still filled with love, enjoyment, and laughter, in no small part due to Jim’s resolve to do everything he could for his beloved wife. He cared for her needs as well as finding the best care possible, took her out, read to her every night, and was her champion. His story is only completed by emphasizing how much love he had for his dear wife, and she for him.

Facts don’t do him justice. Nor does explaining him in a few words, but those few words say Jim was highly intelligent, extremely friendly to everyone, overly self-effacing, candid, insightful, in possession of a great disposition even when faced with grave adversities, and he had a hilarious sense of humor. He wrote his own biography, demonstrating all the above and worthy of publication. When a biological son Wayne, from a brief relationship in his youth, showed up in 2015, he accepted him into his family with love and open arms, further proving his reputation as a very good man with a welcoming nature.

Jim’s life was enhanced by his interests: travel, sports, jazz music, good meals, computers, genealogy, poetry and literature, and especially sharing good times and laughter with his extended family and friends. Jim is predeceased by his beloved wife Therese “Terri” Inhulsen Arnold, parents James Percy Arnold and Hilda Flower Arnold, siblings Francis Henry Arnold, Dorothy Daisy Arnold, his cherished sister Eileen Hilda Arnold Gilmour, and niece Penny Susan Gilmour Waite. He is survived by sons Wayne T Bush and his wife Cheryl, David Bruce Arnold, Kevin Scott Arnold and his wife Yolanda, and Glenn James Arnold and his wife Bethany, nephew Lawrence Peck, and niece Bonnie Gilmour Foster.

His final resting place will be next to his beloved wife Terri in a hillside garden in McLean, Virginia.