James Carl Godwin

You hear and read of people losing their battle with cancer and other illnesses, but for James Carl Godwin, he didn’t have a chance to even make a battle plan, let alone fight one. Jim’s diagnosis of acute leukemia came as a shock and sudden blow, both to him and his family, and within a week he was gone from us. He passed away Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009, at the Bonners Ferry Acute Care Facility. He was 84. Jim was born Aug. 26, 1923, in Eagletown, Okla., to Lola and John Godwin. At 18, joined the Army, where he served as a heavy equipment operator On furlough at a USO dance in Spokane, Wash., Jim met the love of his life, the former Claire Orleans Cossiart of Naples. After a three-month courtship, on July 20, 1947, they married at the Northside residence of Claire’s aunt and uncle, Mildred and Hollice Aldridge. The newlyweds moved to San Francisco, where Jim drove a cab and Claire worked at a bank. They quickly decided the city wasn’t a good place to raise a family and moved back to Bonners Ferry where Jim worked as a mechanic’s helper at Quinn’s Garage. He went on to become a master mechanic, employed at Hines/Gamblin/Plum Chevrolet for more than 20 years. In the mid-1970’s the entrepreneurial bug hit Jim, and he and Claire bought the Texaco Station on Main Street, which they ran successfully for more than 10 years. He will be sincerely missed by his wife of Bonners Ferry; daughters Anne and her husband Gary Regehr of Naples and Carol Hughes and her husband, Jack of Woodland Park, Co.; grandchildren Lisa Dirks and her husband Doug and Brandon Regehr and his wife, Christ, all of Naples, Amy Regehr of Burlington, Wash., Jared Wilson and his wife, Jen, and Amanda Jordan and her husband, Jason, of Whittman, Ariz.; sisters Melba Joanne Godwin and Virginia Franklin, both of Walla Walla, Wash., and Charlene Henley of West Blockton, Ala.; and numerous great-grandchildren. Jim was preceded in death by his parents and brothers Harold and Chuck. Jim didn’t know a stranger; everyone was fair game to talk, and talk he did, sometimes much to his wife’s dismay. “The ornery old coot,” as Claire call him, would strike up a conversation with anyone and talk at length, whether over the back yard fence, on the post office steps or in an airport. He always had an opinion or advice for his daughters or grandchildren. But this old coot had a sentimental heart of mush and tears came easy, whether we were separating for a weekend trip or leaving to move across country. He always tried to avoid the good-bye by slipping away early, and that’s exactly what has happened in his death; he slipped away early and quickly. The man with the sentimental heart had trouble attending funerals, so it’s no surprise that he didn’t want one.