James A. Jim Jensen
James A. “Jim” Jensen
Memorial services for James A. “Jim” Jensen were at April 30. Funeral celebrants Dave and Jane Fulkerson will officiate at the service at Fulkerson Memorial Chapel in Plentywood.
The service will conclude with Masonic Rites. Interment of cremated remains in Redstone cemetery will be held later. Jim, 96, died Saturday night at Sheridan Memorial Nursing Home, where he had been resident since last June.
Born on a farm six miles southeast of Redstone, Mont., Oct. 7, 1917, Jim was the second of eight children of Truels K. And Christine Jensen. He completed eight years at the Archer school, and graduated from Redstone High School as the salutatorian of the class of 1938. He began a lifelong career of farming and ranching, interrupted by World War II. Jim enlisted in the Army Air Corps in December, 1941, completed 33 missions over Europe with the 8th Air Force as a bombardier-navigator, then completed pilot training. While he was stationed in Texas, Jim and Kathleen (“Kay”) Garrick were married Oct. 29, 1943. After his discharge in 1945, Jim returned to Redstone with his young family. With Kay as an active participant in their farming operations, they bought a farm near Redstone, growing wheat, barley, and oats along with livestock, and steadily expanded their land holdings and extended their operations into Saskatchewan in 1960. In 1953, after living in a four-room house with no running water or bathroom, limited electricity and no phone, they built a new home on the farm.
Besides their farming, Jim and Kay were very active in community business and social affairs throughout northeast Montana: Jim was a Past Master of Plentywood Lodge No. 91, A.F. & A.M., belonged to the Shrine, was a 4-H leader, school board member, director of the Redstone Grain Company, ASC County and Community committee man, a director for county and state in the Farm Bureau, a director of the Montana Pioneer Manor, active in the Republican party, and enjoyed hunting and fishing. Jim and Kay never missed any opportunity to dance, to laugh, and to enjoy themselves and their wide circle of family and friends.
Both were active pilots and for many years they kept a plane on the airstrip at their farm. They spent nearly 30 winters in “their” RV park in Indio, Calif., and traveled extensively in their motor home. They knew the western U.S. well, and especially loved the desert. In 1981, they retired to Bigfork, first living in a mobile home in the Echo Lake area, and in 1995 they built a new home in Bigfork where they lived until declining health brought them back to Plentywood to be near family. Following Kay’s death Dec. 4, 2012, Jim continued to live at LaCasa until he moved to the nursing home last June.
Jim is survived by his daughter, Susan Jensen and her husband George Sarantakis, of San Rafael, Calif.; his son, Rick, on the family farm at Redstone, and is also survived by three grandchildren: Jami Holton and her husband Russ; Clay Jensen and his wife Julie (Allen); and Taylor Jensen; and by three great-grandchildren: Aliyah, Avery, and Addy Holton. Survivors also include his siblings, Josie Nash and her husband Orvill, of Plentywood; and Truels Jensen, Jr. Of Opheim. Besides his parents and Kay, his wife of 69 years, he was preceded in death by siblings Carol Matross, Lucille Gray, Evelyn Clute, Harry Jensen, and Thelma Maxwell.