Jim (James Richard) Nichols, age 87, died at home in Statesboro, Georgia, on August 11 after an extended illness. He was born in Troy, NY, attended Union College and the University of North Carolina. He was Professor of English at Muskingum College before coming to Georgia Southern in 1987 as Professor and Chair of the English and Philosophy Department, retiring in 2000.
A Marine veteran, he was widely traveled and sponsored a travel scholarship for GSU faculty. He published major academic works, a novel, and a collection of poetry. He was a member of St. Matthew Catholic Church in Statesboro and served there as one of the best loved Lectors. He was also closely affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Statesboro. He volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for many years. Jim was deeply interested in encouraging the arts and devoted himself to related causes, sponsoring annual dance events at the Averitt Center for the Arts, for example, and music programs at GSU.
He leaves behind his wife, Betsy; two sons, James, of Cary, NC, and Jonathan, of Denver, CO; one granddaughter, Cameron, also of Denver, and a sister, Bonnie, of Schaghticoke, NY.
The funeral will be held on Thursday, August 14, at 10:00am in the Joiner Anderson Funeral Home chapel with Shari Barr officiating. Burial will be at Eastside Cemetery.
Friends may sign the online register book at www.joineranderson.com.
Eulogy by Betsy Nichols
“With thee conversing, I forget all time.” —John Milton
I wonder if even those closest to him knew how truly good Jim Nichols was—how principled, how generous, how great his capacity for love was. Jim inspired me every day for 37 years to know what goodness actually was.
Someone told me once that a person who was generous with his money could be trusted to be generous with his love. That was Jim. Of course he loved his family unconditionally—his sister and his sons, and me, his wife. The surprising thing for me was how he loved my own family of siblings, nieces and nephews. He didn’t see love as an “if” arrangement, and his generosity of love extended far beyond family. He sponsored arts programs, a travel scholarship for teachers. He volunteered at Habitat for Humanity for many years and supported other charities. Jim was a good “Samaritan.” He passed no one by, left no one on the side of the road.
Jim’s principles were Democratic. He lamented the destructive nature of poverty and stood against the elitism that ignored it. He hated racism and bigotry. I had the same principles, but Jim’s weren’t just an intellectual commitment. He felt them in every cell of his body. They were as natural to him as breathing. He also had spiritual principles. He struggled with faith because he was a questioning intellect, but as a committed Catholic with close connections to Unitarian Universalists he sought truth wherever it lay. The first hour of every morning he spent with a devotion book and in prayer—all done privately—in a “closet” so to speak—as the Bible recommends. Disagreements over religion or politics didn’t anger him. Although he was strongly devoted to his own convictions, he made a point to read about opposing views and he was friends with people who held those views.
Jim was a voracious reader and a published author himself—academic books related to his long career as a university teacher and administrator but also novels and poetry. He read The New Yorker every week, cover to cover. After all, he grew up in NY State. He read The New York Review of Books, The Smithsonian, among others. Then there was his personal library. You walk into our house from the carport and you face a wall of books. About two thousand of them—books on everything from art to philosophy to history to religion—just everything. He had read every single volume over his lifetime. Every single one—as his illegible notes in most of them testify. And better not change the position of any book on its shelf. He would notice.
Jim had Viking ancestry and it showed in his love of sailing—and travel. He never saw a boat he didn’t want to sail or a country he didn’t want to explore. He drove us all over Italy, Great Britain, France. One of his favorite places was the Greek island of Corfu. We honeymooned there and had a favorite bougainvillea-crowned restaurant we returned to many times over the years. Naturally, his favorite song was “Two for the Road.”
Jim was brave, quietly fearless. He wasn’t afraid to make his point of view clear. He wasn’t afraid of bullies—or of anything really. After all, he was a Marine—a lieutenant in intelligence after WWII, serving in Japan. And he had a booming authoritative voice. We were hiking on Crete once when a wild dog appeared out of nowhere baring its teeth and growling. Jim swung me around behind himself, picked up a stick and yelled so loud at the dog that it ran away. I simply never worried about safety when I was with Jim.
Jim was happiest when we were on our early morning walks around the lake, discussing philosophy with his friends in his 8:00 prayer group at St. Matthews, having a glass of wine out on the porch at sunset, playing poker, planning a trip—any kind of trip—getting tickets for a concert, and most especially talking on the phone with his two sons, James and Jon, or anticipating a visit from them. He was incredibly proud of his sons.
We had a rare and beautiful life. Jim was the best thing that ever happened to me.
“Good night, sweet prince. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”