Jim Devers

Paid through 2025. Renew early!

Taught English literature with a specialty in American lit at Eastern Michigan University for 29 years. Retired as a full professor.

Stoneman Elementary (SM)
South Pasadena Junior High
Huntington Elementary (SM)

San Marino till 1949; South Pasadena and West Los Angeles until 1955; Lackland AFB, Ellington AFB, McClellan AFB, Stead AFB, Homestead AFB until December, 1958; Europe for nine months; Grad school at UCLA for Masters; Hong Kong for one year; West LA until 1968, leaving with Ph.D; Ypsilanti, MI until 2005; Roswell, GA at Heritage at Roswell until 2017; St. George Village, a CCRC from 2017 to present.

My widowed mother and myself moved from our home in San Marino to a house on Diamond Ave. in South Pasadena in 1949. My mother married Albert F. Garlinghouse and we moved into his home on Milan Ave. in 1950. I took the special from San Marino to South Pasadena for my Junior and Senior high school years. I graduated in 1949

Nancy Devers Shaw, who lives near Easton, MD and who graduated in 1945. She died in September of 2020. My stepbrother and sister Albert Garlinghouse and Peggy Garlinghouse Sperry are also SPSMHS grads. They are both now deceased.

Steve Sherrill, John Coombs, JR McCabe, Jack Waltz, Jerry Cauthen, and Ed Dey. That was then. Now, since most of those are deceased, I have no classmates with whom I keep in touch.

I remember the time when there was a potentially dangerous crush of students trying to get their yearbooks. People were trapped between the auditorium and the yearbook office in a narrow space and everyone was pressing forward and people could have been crushed or trampled. Then, I forget who it was, but he was a real hero at that moment, shouted everyone down, got everyone to relax, and saved the day.

I played tennis, and I was a Bengal. That would have been from 1946-1949.

I was elected president of my fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, in 1953. I discovered Europe in 1957. I got a Ph.D from UCLA in English Literature. I got married in 1967 to Mary Beth Smith. I then instantly became the father (step) of Neil Godfrey. I became the father of Evelyn in 1968, and moved from Southern california to ypsilanti, MI. I became the father of Amy in 1971. I retired in 1997.

Art and golf and travel.

I love opera and golden oldies.

Favorite book: "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond; NY Review of Books. Netflix

August, 2025. I interact with my grandkids, I paint in acrylics, I jog 1/2 mile three times a week, I am on a committee to write a history of my retirement home, I sing here in the choir, I read books, I have a garden where I grow tomatoes, sweet corn, strawberries, and sugar snap peas.

1955-1957

Second Lieutenant. But I was in the Reserve for a time and was released as a captain.

Ellington AFB for navigation training. McClellan AFB for reconnaissance and bomb dropping training (in those days the navigator would be in charge of actually flying the plane over the target). Stead AFB for Survival Training, Homestead AFB where I did pretty much nothing before mustering out.