John James “Jim” Leineweber

Born August 28, 1913 in Flanders Street, Portland, Oregon. He worked as us naval reserve. He died October 16, 1995 in Portland, Oregon.

• Survey Report Editor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1936.
• Naval supply officer in WWII; arrived in Seattle July 16, 1943.

A Portland Boyhood

John James “Jim” Leineweber was born on August 28, 1913, at his family's home on Flanders Street in Portland, Oregon, a household that for a time also included his grandfather Cornelius Madigan and an aunt and uncle. He attended Cathedral School and Columbia Preparatory High School, where he co-captained the basketball team as center.

Basketball Star at the University of Portland

Jim entered Columbia University in Portland in 1933 — the school was renamed the University of Portland in 1935, midway through his time there, making his team the last to play under the old Columbia name. A four-year varsity basketball player, he was the team's second-highest scorer as a junior and its captain in his senior year, when he was also elected senior class president. He graduated in June 1936 with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration, the ceremony held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Naval Officer in the Aleutians

Jim worked as a price clerk for General Petroleum Corporation in Portland and then Seattle before entering the U.S. Naval Reserve in June 1942. Commissioned an ensign, he served as a coding officer and custodian of registered publications at the Naval Operating Base at Dutch Harbor, Alaska, from July 1942 to March 1944 — through the heart of the Aleutian Islands campaign — before transferring to the Naval Supply Depot at Clearfield, Utah, where he served in a succession of roles (welfare and recreation officer, barracks officer, civil readjustment officer) and rose to lieutenant. He married during a five-day leave in April 1945 and was released from active duty in 1946, remaining in the inactive reserve until his formal discharge in 1954.

A Career in Oil Accounting

Jim returned to General Petroleum Corporation in Portland after the war, working his way up through the accounting side of the business — unit chief for oil stock movement, then for general accounting, then for accounts receivable, ultimately supervising over a dozen employees and overseeing the company's shift to IBM tabulating systems. He later worked as an independent insurance agent and broker, retiring in 1986.

Faith and Community

In his later years Jim became a fixture of Portland's St. Vincent de Paul Society, serving for years as treasurer of its Day Care Center advisory board and receiving the Society's Long and Distinguished Service Award in 1987; as late as December 1992, in a wheelchair, he was still helping deliver food baskets to families in need. He died in Portland on October 16, 1995, just months after celebrating his fiftieth wedding anniversary with his family in the Columbia Gorge.