Jimmy Farrar demonstrates his skill at tying fly fishing flies with his artificial arms and hands.
Sometimes our heroes stories are about bravery under fire, the atrocities of war and the valiant soldiers who were wounded in battle or who gave their lives for their country.
This story is different. It has all of those other elements plus one more. It is a story about a World War II hero from Texas finding love with a girl from Minnesota.
Blue Earth, Minnesota, to be exact.
James Reed Farrar was born on Sept. 3, 1906, in Palmer, Texas, the oldest of four children born to James Bowden Farrar and Maxie Ethel (Reed) Farrar.
James, or Jimmy as he was usually called, worked on his parents’ cotton farm in Texas and attended school in Palmer, graduating from high school there in 1925.
He was a three-sport athlete in high school and had earned a football scholarship to Austin College in Sherman, Texas.
Jimmy’s plan was to study medicine, but he found that, as he put it, “studying took too much time” and so he gave up the study of medicine.
When the Depression came, he quit college and headed off to California, first living in Fresno, then in San Francisco, working a variety of jobs.
That is, until 1942, when he enlisted in the Army to fight in World War II.
He became a corporal, and ended up fighting on Guadalcanal Island, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
Jimmy Farrar was part of a group that was driving the Japanese soldiers back about five miles each day. When night came, the small advance unit he was a member of would prefer to “dig in” below a ridge, so that if any enemy soldiers were coming across the ridge, that person would show up against the skyline.
On a night in January, 1943, it was Jimmy’s turn to stand watch while his other companions slept.
Suddenly, he saw a dark blot that blocked out a portion of the skyline and Corp. Farrar was instantly on the alert.
Then he saw a tiny spark in the darkness. He thought it could be a Japanese soldier pulling the pin on a hand grenade, or tapping it on his helmet to activate it.
Jimmy grabbed one of his own grenades, intending to pull the pin and then throw it. He had it in his hands when suddenly the enemy grenade landed in his arms.
There was a blast, maybe two of them, and the next thing Jimmy Farrar remembers was plunging and screaming through the jungle with two bloody stumps where his hands had been a moment before.
Sometime later medical corpsmen found him in a pool of blood and carried him, under heavy sniper fire, three miles to a hospital tent.
In time, Jimmy was sent back to the United States and to Bushnell General Hospital, in Brigham City, Utah, where he spent a year in convalescence and not just from his physical wounds.
Jimmy had always been physically active, and was a three-sport athlete. The reality of having lost both his hands and parts of both arms, sent him into depression.
But, then, he met Marie Annette Kopplin who was working in the library at Bushnell Hospital, and the two fell in love.
Marie was six years younger than Jimmy, having been born on Sept. 23, 1912, in Blue Earth, Minnesota.
She was the eldest child of John Frederick Kopplin and Minnie Theresa (Eberlein) Kopplin of Blue Earth.
After graduating from Blue Earth High School, Marie went off to college at Carleton College in Northfield. After graduation, she ended up working at the Bushnell Hospital library in Utah.
With Marie’s support, Jimmy become adept at using his two artificial hands. In fact, he not only learned how to use them for all kinds of daily chores, but other things such as billiards, driving a car, horseback riding, hiking, and handwriting – which was done with excellent penmanship.
Also, amazingly, Jimmy became an expert fly fishing flytier, using his artificial hands and small thread, feathers, and hooks to create perfect flies.
Jimmy and Marie were married on Feb. 23, 1944. A year later, the couple welcomed a son, James Max Farrar, on Feb. 3, 1945.
Jimmy had received a medical discharge from the Army, but the Farrars stayed in Utah. Because he had to learn how to use his artificial hands, Jimmy became a civilian instructor at the Bushnell Hospital to help arm amputees deal with the loss of an arm or hand.
The amputees saw the many things Jimmy could do and it inspired them to try. They said that if Jimmy says something can be done, they believed him, because they could see him doing it himself.
In 1946, Jimmy and Marie left Utah and moved first to Santa Rosa, California, and then to a country ranch near Sebastopol, California in 1948.
Over the years, members of both the Farrar and Kopplin families lived with or near them in California.
Jimmy’s brother came and lived with them in 1946 when they moved to California. But, he went back home to Texas in 1948.
Marie’s mother, Minnie, died in 1944 at the age of 58 in Blue Earth. She is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Blue Earth.
At some point after his wife’s death, John Kopplin left Blue Earth and went to live in California near his daughter and son-in-law, Marie and Jimmy.
He died on Dec. 26, 1962, at the age of 72, in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California. He also is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Blue Earth.
Marie’s sister, Joan Elizabeth May Kopplin, also moved to Santa Rosa at some point and lived there for many years. Joan Kopplin died Aug. 29, 2004, at the age of 73, in Santa Rosa.
She, like her parents, is also buried in Riverside Cemetery in Blue Earth.
As for Jimmy and Marie Farrar?
Jimmy passed away on Jan. 22, 1982, at the age of 75, in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, California.
Marie lived a couple more years and died on March 29, 1984, at the age of 74, also in Sebastopol, California.
There is a gravestone for Jimmy in Smith Cemetery, Palmer, Ellis County, Texas, and there is a gravestone for Marie in Riverside Cemetery in Blue Earth.
However, Jimmy is not buried in Palmer, Texas, and Marie is not buried in Blue Earth, Minnesota.
The ashes of Jimmy and Marie were spread side by side on their beloved ranch in Sebastipol, California.
Together forever.
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