Jim Cosgrave

One of my first contacts outside of Shell on my arrival was my acquaintance Jim Cosgrave, who by then had left Shell and was working as a reporter or staff writer for the McGraw-Hill magazine Chemical Engineering. I remember him including me, along with some relatives from Fresno and I believe his parents, in attending a rodeo, or maybe some sort of stock show at the Cow Palace south of San Francisco. All during my years in the Bay area, both before and after I was married I kept in touch with him and it was only after the move to Houston that I lost touch.

Now that I think of it I believe that I visited him even after our move to Ashland. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that a Christmas card to him came back unclaimed. I kept thinking that I should try to reestablish contact with him since he had certainly played a significant role in my life. I also had the vague feeling that he may not have been all that interested in keeping up the contact. He had remained a bachelor as long as I still had contact with him and I recall him remarking on occasion that as his acquaintances were married and had children he tended to pass out of their lives.

I may have mentioned earlier that he was a spastic — although his affliction was at a rather low level and did not keep him from living an almost normal life. Later on he became a lawyer (I think by means of night classes, etc.) but I don’t know in what capacity he used his legal training.

I met his parents on several occasions (he was an only child). They were congenial enough though rather orthodox Presbyterians (particularly his father I think). When I knew them, they lived in one of the western areas of San Francisco and I recall visiting them there — even after we had one or more of our daughters. Jim’s father worked in YMCA management. He preceded his wife in death and Jim had the responsibility of arranging for his mother’s affairs in her later years. She had been a teacher in the public schools I believe.

I continued to think about him occasionally and one time when we were at Muriel’s I brought the subject up and that he had been a member of the California bar. Muriel immediately called up the bar to find out about him and found out that he had died several months previously. I regret that I did not look into his whereabouts sooner and try to get in touch with him.

Jim was a cigarette smoker. He once told me that he would have liked to smoke cigars but they were too strong for him. His idea of a very pleasurable experience was to sit across the table from a cigar-smoker and have him blow smoke in his direction. This comment on his part may have been the seed for my contention that tobacco users smoke because the like the smell of the smoke and that nicotine addiction is perhaps a minor contributing factor.