James Richard Snow Jr.

James Richard Snow, Jr., known simply as Jimmy to those who loved him, died in hospice at Pacifica House in Carlsbad, California on May 5, 2020 after being hospitalized on and off over the better part of two months with severe congestive heart failure. He had recently turned 60.

Jimmy, a gentle soul who was first diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in his late teens, was well-known and well-liked by many other clients and care workers in the mental health community in North County San Diego. Jimmy had been in the area for decades, attending local behavioral health programs and living in a series of board and care and independent living homes for people with schizophrenia and other kinds of mental illness. Despite his challenges, he nurtured numerous close friendships, including with Ron Lowe, his best friend going back decades.

Jimmy never met a stranger and frequently struck up conversations with people he encountered walking through town, on public transportation, or when out shopping.

He wed once, in 1994, to Sonya Jeanne Brown, who also lived with mental illness. She died in 2001. They had no children together.

Jimmy was born the third of four children on March 28, 1960 at the U.S. Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut, where his father and namesake, James Richard Snow, was a lieutenant assigned to help command nuclear submarines. Jimmy’s mother, Catherine J. Snow, was a former nursing student and homemaker who championed social causes and supported charities helping the most disenfranchised members of society. Arriving two months premature, Jimmy weighed just 3 pounds 9 ½ ounces and was 16 inches long. He stayed nearly eight weeks in an incubator before he was strong enough to come home.

As a child, Jimmy was fascinated by airplanes, helicopters and anything else that could fly. When he was about 6 years old, he could build a kite from newspaper and sticks and fly it by himself at grassy Sunset Beach Park, a stone's throw from the Pacific Ocean in Coronado, California. As he grew older, he became obsessed with plastic toy paratroopers whose parachutes often got tangled in trees and could be seen hanging from the branches in the background of Snow family photographs. He later graduated to balsa wood planes and finally more sophisticated plastic models of jets as the family moved frequently due to military transfers, from Coronado, to Honolulu, then back to San Diego’s Point Loma area.

A serious heart ailment forced Jimmy’s father, an ambitious Naval Academy graduate who reached the rank of lieutenant commander, to take an early medical retirement. After a few more years in Point Loma, the family moved to a big, two-story tract house at the end of a cul-de-sac in what was then the new planned city of Irvine, California. Jimmy’s father died in 1972.

By the time Jimmy had reached his early teens, he had taken up body surfing and knee boarding, frequently hitchhiking or taking the Pink Bus, a public transportation service for youth, to Corona del Mar or adjacent Newport Beach almost every day during the summer. But he struggled when classes resumed and never finished high school.

At age 19, Jimmy was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, a mental illness characterized by delusions and hallucinations that blur the line between reality and fantasy, making it hard for a person with it to lead a typical life. The years that followed were often turbulent. But Jimmy, like many people, obtained meaning in his life from rich relationships with family, especially his mother and his sisters, and with his best friend Ron. Also important to him were the other participants and staff members of the support programs he attended, including Kinesis and the Clubhouse in Escondido. Over Thanksgiving holidays and during other family gatherings, Jimmy demonstrated his talent as a wickedly good Scrabble player, almost always winning. He also enjoyed the few times he went deep sea fishing.

Though not a member of any church, Jimmy’s Christian faith and practice of prayer were important to him and he occasionally attended religious services with friends who belonged to a variety of denominations.

Jimmy is survived by two sisters: Anita Snow, of Phoenix, and Rebecca Snow, of San Diego. He also leaves nieces Jennifer, of Seymour, Indiana; Corrine, of Crothersville, Indiana; and Tristen, of Frankfurt, Kentucky; as well as nephews Keith and Benjamin, both of Kentucky. Also surviving are two cousins, Sherry Marica and Don Jeanrenaud, and an aunt, Marcia Horstman, all of Virginia.

In addition to his father, Jimmy’s mother and older brother Daniel also preceded him in death.

A graveside service has been scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, June 5 at El Camino Memorial Park, 5600 Carroll Canyon Rd., San Diego. Maj. Dave Shull, Salvation Army Corps Officer, San Diego Citadel Corps, will officiate.

We ask that instead of flowers donations be sent to the San Diego office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (namisandiego.org/donate), the Interfaith Community Services (interfaithservices.org/donate), which provides help to people experiencing homelessness in North County San Diego, or any local Salvation Army location.

But the most generous thing you can do for our brother is to have compassion for people experiencing mental illness or any other disability. If you have a sister who is bipolar, a child who is autistic, a nephew with Down syndrome, please don’t be embarrassed or ashamed, don’t pull away. Be proud of them and be proud to be part of their life. Love them for who they are.

And then love them a little bit more.