Dr. James A. Fiske (’70)
James (Jim) A. Fiske
July 23, 1936 – September 26, 2024
Born in Salem, Oregon, Jim’s youth revolved around music—band, orchestra, and choir. His first jobs included working in the fields picking strawberries and beans and, at age 16, in a local cannery. During college years, he worked in an ice-cream factory.
At Willamette University, he enrolled in the School of Music. While there, Jim and Judy met. A romantic relationship grew during band tours, and they were married before finishing college. Jim spent a fifth year at the university, because he had enrolled in the Advanced Air Force ROTC program. When he realized the reason they were training them to fly was to drop bombs on people, he left the program after a court martial. Then, because of all the courses in Military Air Science, he needed another year to complete his other requirements for graduation.
At that time, Jim and Judy heard a visiting missionary speak. They both felt “the call,” which led to their being accepted by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and sent to Japan as “short termers.” They taught music at North Japan College, helped at the Student Center, and worked with local churches. Jim wrote, “We took one child with us and returned with two more ‘made in Japan,’ as our youngest puts it.”
After three years, they returned to the U.S., where Jim taught public school music for three years before going to Boston University School of Theology. During those four years, Jim served local churches. Although they had been Congregationalists, now they had become Methodists.
After graduation, they returned to Japan, where they spent their first two years in Language School in Tokyo. Then they moved to Kobe. At the Canadian Academy, Jim taught the band for four years. His primary assignment was to Shima no Uchi church in Osaka, where he served with Rev. Nishihara. After five years, Jim moved to Kei Mei girls school, where he taught English and Bible, and served on the Board of Trustees. On many weekends, he traveled to churches on Awaji Island in the Inland Sea.
For their last six years in Japan, Jim was pastor of Kobe Union Church, an international, inter-denominational congregation. It was during these years that Jim completed D. Min. studies at the School of Theology in Claremont, studying primarily with John Cobb. Because Judy wanted to pursue a career in Counseling Psychology, they returned to the U.S., where Jim served churches in the greater Portland, Oregon area.
In 2000, they retired and spent a year and a half as full time “RV-ers,” circling the outline of the U.S., and eventually settling in Salem. In 2005 they entered Pilgrim Place, where Jim was a master woodworker, member of the Chorale, member and, at the end, director of the Winsor Brass. Jim and Judy were active members of the Claremont UMC.