When "Jimmie" Mayo was born on the cold and frosty February morning in Brainerd, Minnesota, to Malon Hall and Blanche (Goodell) Mayo, little did he know that his life would be so full of adventure, travels, and blessed with people who loved him so deeply.
Jim grew up with his twelve brothers and sister in a two-story house on Gillis Avenue in the middle of Brainerd. He and his siblings slept in the loft on the second story of the house, and many times he told of the dangers associated with so many sleeping in an area with no protection from falling down to the first floor. Roughhousing, pillow fights, and general silliness could send any one of the children tumbling to a certain severe injury. Somehow they all managed to survive to tell about it in later years.
Jimmie Mayo grew up playing on the banks of Rice Lake in Lum Park and traveled to the woods with his father who operated a saw mill. His escapades included "borrowing" his father's old truck when he thought he was sleeping, to sneaking into local milk barns and skimming the cream off of the tops of milk pails and feasting until he was sick. It seems he was always the "innocent", to hear him tell it, and his family believed it until his brothers and sisters came to visit and told a completely different story, to which Jim would get a very angelic expression on his face and try to look offended at the "stories" they told on him.
After graduating from Brainerd High School, Jimmie attended Dunwoody Institute and majored in engineering. His scholastic abilities, especially in the field of math, were excellent, and immediately upon graduating he was hired by IBM as a service engineer. He was given a choice of two offices to work in . . . San Francisco or Houston, Texas. He chose Houston, feeling that it would at least provide opportunity to get back home to Brainerd more often.
After transferring to Houston, he met Mary Frances Parsons, seven years his junior, who was also employed at IBM as a secretary. They dated for two years and married on March 31, 1933. Two years later they had their first child, a daughter, Patricia Anne.
Jimmie was then transferred from the Houston office to Oklahoma City where he and his little family set up housekeeping on West 45th Street. Three children followed, James, Jr. in 1938, Mary Susan in 1943, and George Timothy in 1945. during World War II, while many men were drafted into the armed services, Jim was exempt because of his career status. Man-power shortages caused him to be transferred again to the Tulsa area where he helped establish the Tulsa office.
After living in Tulsa for several years, in April of 1951, Jim moved his family to a little town south of Tulsa, Jenks. They moved into a two-story house on East "A" Street, one block off of Main Street. There they made their home and raised their children, and the residence was called "home" to the family until June of 1999. Two daughters were born to Jim and Mary Frances after moving to Jenks. Margaret Elizabeth ("Betsy") was born in 1953, and Sarah Eileen ("Sally") came along in 1958. That completed the large and happy family.
Jim's career with IBM was an illustrious one. He was a perfectionist in his work, a genius at problem-solving, and highly thought of and looked up to by his co-workers. His ability to think in the abstract won him a national award with IBM for a complicated suggestion he made that not only saved money for the company but made the functionability of the machine it involved easier to work on and much more user-friendly. His advice on various engineering difficulties was often sought by not only engineers in his location, but from other parts of the state as well. His talents and gifts were widely known.
Jim's gifts and talents, however, were not limited to those that required a tool bag. He was a care-given in the truest sense of the world. He was active in the Jenks Lion's Club, serving as their president, was active in the Red Cross Blood Drive, giving gallons of blood during his lifetime, and was always there to help anyone in need. He bought raffle tickets from everyone who asked him. It was laughed about for years when the evening was recalled that he rushed in the back door to announce excitedly, "I've just won the drawing for the BULL-HEIFER!!!!" Farmer, he was NOT. Another time he won a Shetland pony, and while his children were just sure they would be able to keep their new pony tethered to the cedar tree in the back yard, it was given to a family who actually had a farm. For some reason it seemed that horses and living in town did not mix.
After 41 years of servicre with IBM, Jimmie Mayo retired to a life of tinkering, socializing, and being Daddy and "Paw-Paw" to the family that adored him. It was during these retirement years he conceived the idea and built the "Rolamonica" (that story is linked from this page). His "inventions" included early intercom systems whose wires led snake-like not only through the rooms of the house, but even extended to the home of his daughter, who lived next door. His mind was always conjuring up new ways to make life more simple . . . or if not more simple, at least more exciting. His ideas were not always appreciated, however, by his wife . . . especially when she had to wash the family laundry over the edge of the bathtub because her inventor-husband had "borrowed" the motor from her Maytag to see if a new project would work!
Jim was a practical joker. His electrical and mechanical jokes were the talk of the town. Because of his sense of humor, everyone always expected the most outlandish and most unusual approach to the jokes he pulled. But because he was so loved, all who knew him hoped they would be the next "victim."
His daily trips to the do-nut shop gathered in a large group of friends who also made that shop their morning home. There was a whole crew of them. All met at the same time to discuss current events, laugh, trade stories, and complain about their newest aches and pains. Because of their closeness, it was not unusual for them to play practical jokes on one another. One of the on-going dilemmas of the wintertime mornings was the disappearance of Jim's fur-lined gloves.
Each morning he would go into the do-nut shop, lay his morning paper and fur-lined gloves on "his" designated table, turn and go to the counter for his coffee and roll. Each and every morning when he returned to his place, his paper would be there, but the fur-lined gloves would be gone. Sometimes it would be days before they would reappear, just where he'd left them. He decided that "someone" needed to be caught.
Always a man to preclude his jokes with a big build-up, he began taking a cigar box to the do-nut shop with him. In this box were several things . . . a notepad, a pen, several snapshots, etc. His explanation was that as he sat there visiting with his friends, ideas would come to his mind, and he wanted to start jotting some of those ideas down as they talked. Because they knew the way his mind was always working, they accepted that excuse as valid. And, true to his word, as he and his friends visited, he would pull out his note pad, take a few notes, draw a schematic or two, put the pad back in the box and close the lid.
Meanwhile, down in the bowels of his basement workshop, he was working on a box that looked identical to the one he toted to the do-nut shop every morning. In THIS box, however, was an alarm system. It had bells, buzzers, sirens and flashing lights. IT was weight sensitive, so that when an object of a certain weight was set ON the box, it kept quiet. But lift that object OFF of the box and all of the alarms would be activated and everything but fireworks would come out of it. Of course, the chosen weight was that pair of fur-lined gloves!
The big morning arrived. Jim put on his coat, his gloves, and gathered up his box with the alarms in it, and headed for the do-nut shop. He went in, took off his gloves, and as he sat the box down on his table, immediately put his gloves on the top of the box. All was well. Then, as was his usual custom, he turned and went to the counter. All of a sudden all hell broke loose. As he turned around, there was his culprit, gloves in hand, whtie-faced, knees buckled, and clinging to the back of a near-by chair to keep from fainting. Lights were flashing, bells, whistles, sirens and gongs were sounding, and streamers were shooting up to the ceiling. All of the do-nut shop was in an uproar. Jimmie Mayo caught his thief. Never again were his fur-lined gloves disturbed. Victory! Sweet Victory!
When Jimmie Mayo passed on to Glory in November of 1987, the town of Jenks lost its best friend, its most avid supporter, and its most colorful character. The Jenks United Methodist Church was standing room only, packed with friends who had known and loved him for years. His life touched the life of so many others. And his legacy lives on in the many stories that are told and handed down from friend to friend, and in the family from generation to generation, by those who have either been blessed to know him, been helped by his generosity, or have been "victimized" by one of his jokes!
* * * A QMS Deezyne * * *