James Norman Buck was born into a multi-generational farming family on February 8, 1927. His dad, Thomas, worked the family homestead, while his mom, Esther, ran the house. Like most families in their community, they didn’t have much, but they had faith and each other.
Esther and Thomas thought Jim was an awfully good baby. He rarely fussed and seemed easy to please. But that quiet nature wasn’t due to Jim’s personality. Unknown to them, their firstborn had polio.
He won that battle, although as Jim grew older, he walked with a bit of a limp. One leg was shorter than the other, something he learned to deal with. He didn’t complain, even when his legs cramped up and he found daily activities hard to complete.
Jim attended Olivet Nazarene College in Kankakee, Illinois, at his mother’s prompting. She felt he had a gift for preaching. But he didn’t feel like he fit. He struggled in many ways. He had a bit of a speech impediment. He still walked with a limp. Jim didn’t stay at college for long, and he wondered if God would be able to use a physically broken man like him. He continued studying the Bible, praying and looking for ways to serve and to be useful.
On March 7, 1948, Jim married Sara Jane Brush, and they welcomed a daughter, Susan Jane, and a son, James Michael, to their small family. Jim worked various jobs around town and in Terre Haute, including the bread factory. He loved to bake bread at home, and when the grandchildren visited, they fought over who would eat the first warm roll. Their teachers looked forward to Grandparents’ Day because they knew homemade bread would accompany the visiting grandparents. One teacher always asked, “Is the bread grandpa coming?”
Jim worked for 20 years at Indiana State University in Terre Haute and received a clock that chimed every hour, even at night, as a retirement gift. His five grandkids didn’t know whether to be scared of it or to love it. Often, Sara hid the clock so the chimes wouldn’t wake up anyone during the night.
In the midst of working and raising a family, Harmony Community Church invited Jim and Sara to pastor them. Sara enjoyed hosting families for simple, home cooked dinners, and Jim enjoyed preaching and teaching. After Jim and Sara’s son, Mike, graduated from Olivet and began pastoring, Mike often invited his dad to preach at revivals and during occasional Sunday services. No one cared that Jim walked with a limp and sometimes stuttered. He spoke Truth, and he loved helping others grow in their faith.
His grandchildren grew up listening to him read Luke 2 every Christmas Eve. Jim also shared stories of God’s mercy and grace, like how God saved him from a life of drunkenness at a young age and how God provided everything Jim needed when he needed it.
But Jim was lighthearted. He sang and enjoyed pranks. His family will continue to tell his favorite joke. “Do you know which car brand is mentioned in the Bible? Honda. Because they all prayed in one Accord.” He laughed and laughed every time he told that joke. Everyone else laughed with him because, well, Grandpa thought he was funny.
Besides listening to Notre Dame football games on the radio, Jim loved to walk and mow the yard with his riding lawnmower. He also gardened and tended to a small grapevine planted under a large crab apple tree. Jim regularly baked his three-egg yeast bread, a recipe he spent years searching for and perfecting, until a few years ago.
In his retirement, Jim served the Nazarene Church as a fill-in preacher and evangelist. He also volunteered in local nursing homes, visiting residents and praying with them. Jim learned reflexology to use as a ministry to help people find pain relief, even while he endured his own pain from polio’s long-term effects.
When Sara died in 2006, Jim continued ministering in the nursing homes and teaching an adult Sunday School class at Brazil First Church of the Nazarene. He spent time with his daughter’s and son’s families, moving in full time with his daughter about ten years later. His son, Mike, died in October of 2018, leaving Jim grieving once again and wondering when God would call him home.
“I’m just a grumpy old man,” he told one of his granddaughters. “But God’s been faithful. He’s been so faithful.”
Despite that self-proclaimed grumpiness, Jim praised God for providing financially for his family and for using him to serve others. He shared lessons from scripture with anyone who would listen, and always had advice for his grandchildren and great grandchildren.
“Don’t be a Christian. Anyone can be a Christian,” he said. “Be a disciple.”
And that’s what he was until 11 p.m. on December 17, 2020, when Jesus embraced him.
Jim’s legacy will live on in his daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Roger Shanks of Marion, and in his daughter-in-law, Dale Buck of Columbus, Ohio. His grandchildren will do their best to live as Jim modeled for them: Amy (Andy) Smelser of Banquo; Gina (Eric) Whitesell of Knightsville; Erin (Dax) Joyner of Nashville, North Carolina; T.J. (Missy Lively) Buck of Columbus, Ohio; and Michael Buck of Columbus, Ohio.
His great-grandchildren will remember him as someone with a quick hug and a big smile: Sydney (James) Pinkerton of Marion; Bryce, Bryan and Brady Crossman of Banquo; Jeff (Maddie) Whitesell of Terre Haute; Joey and Jayden Whitesell of Knightsville; Joshua, Hailey, Elijah and Judah Buck of Columbus, Ohio; Parker, Molly and Benjamin Chapman of Columbus, Ohio; Darcey Joyner of Nashville, North Carolina; and John Smelser of Banquo.
Great-great granddaughter, Raelynn Pinkerton of Marion, will always have a special bond with Jim since they shared a birthday, and Jim loved getting updates about his great-great grandson Nicholis Floyd-Whitesell.
The family would like to thank the staff at Colonial Oaks Health and Rehabilitation Center in Marion for taking care of Jim during the last few weeks of his life while he recovered from a broken ankle.
Graveside Services will be at Calcutta Cemetery on December 26, 2020 at 11:00am. French Funeral Home, in Brazil, has been entrusted with his care.