David R. Wallace
Jimmie Russell was my friend
In 1977, my dad and I drove from Los Angeles to Weir, Kansas to see Grandma Sarah Wallace before she died. We were too late. She died just a few hours before we arrived. During the week of burying Grandma, and meeting aunts, uncles and cousins I had never known, I met the man next door, Jimmie Russell.
When I learned that he was Bill Russell’s uncle, I had to try and get a little closer to one of my Dodger heroes. Our mutual love for the Dodgers became the cornerstone of a 40-year friendship. Jimmie and I had a lot to talk about right away. The Dodgers had just lost the World Series to the hated Yankee’s for the second year in a row.
Just when Jimmie’s battle with cancer began, I don’t know. But when I returned to Kansas on vacation with my dad’s brother Fletcher and my aunt Dorris in 1987, Jimmie had retired early, was on a colostomy bag, and — I later learned — had been told he didn’t have long to live. He must have been down, but he didn’t show it.
The Dodgers had a miserable year in 1987, but our love of the game and our team was strong and, when I returned to Kansas in 1988, the Dodgers were back on top — in the pennant race and soon to be World Champions of Major League Baseball.
Visiting Jimmie and his wife, Mardell, became routine. The conversation was almost always light-hearted and fun. Whatever disappointments life had dealt were acknowledged and put aside.
The worst was the loss of Mardell. She always took care of Jimmie, and he just wasn’t ready for her to go on before him. He was sick and he was sad. It was during this, the hardest of times, that Jimmie’s strength would show.
They say hard times bring out the best in us and it was true with Jimmie. The nature of our conversations changed. He started saying things about life — what was right and what was wrong. He started telling me about the things that mattered to Jimmie Russell.
After a vacation to Europe, I was proudly showing Jimmie pictures of France and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Reims. He got excited and told me that he had been there. After WWII he was an MP stationed in France. One of his duties was to guard the cathedral. The town had been destroyed but the Nazi’s spared the cathedral. Anything of value had to be guarded or it would be taken.
We talked about his time in the Army and about his guys. Jimmie and his guys were in England, and they received orders to go into battle in France. That’s when fate intervened and changed Jimmie’s path. He had to go see the medics for a cyst on his tailbone. No big deal, but they wouldn’t let him go to the front with his guys. He stayed behind while they went to Northern France. Not many of them came back.
Jimmie came home from the Army and married the prettiest girl in town, had two beautiful daughters, a bunch of grandkids, and lived a life that was worthy of a member of “The Greatest Generation.”
He loved everyone in his life and was as tough as nails. He was kind to us all and we were blessed to have him. But make no mistake, Jimmie’s guys died in the fields of Northern France, and he always felt he should have been there with them.
A lot of people die every day. When Jimmie Russell died in 2019 at 97, I grieved and I still feel the loss. My hope for you is that you have a friend so dear to you that when they die, you grieve.
I want more friends like that. I want to be a friend like that.
— David R. Wallace
