Friday, February 25, 2000
Former Enquirer columnist dies
Jim Hausman, 83, was adviser to Ike
BY REBECCA BILLMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When Jim Hausman was a boy, he must have had grand dreams. For he went on to become an Air Force colonel, a teacher of nuclear physics, the author of a children's book, a syndicated newspaper columnist and the father of seven.
He was a bombardier in World War II, received nine campaign medals and served as a senior officer in military intelligence. His duties included briefing the president of the United States and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Although he traveled to 44 countries, he never strayed far from his boyhood roots.
Beginning in the spring of 1973, Mr. Hausman wrote articles called “When I was a Boy” once a week for The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Not exactly a column — more akin to verse — it was so popular he was soon asked to write it five times a week. Mr. Hausman called them skinny mini-
vignettes, and by fall of that year they were nationally syndicated.
He died Feb. 18 at a nursing home in Indianapolis. He was 83. He had had Alzheimer's disease for several years and recently suffered a broken hip.
He was born in an upstairs bedroom in his family's home on Galvin Avenue in Sedamsville. The family later moved to Ridgeview Avenue in Price Hill.
Mr. Hausman graduated from Elder High School in 1934 and received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Xavier University in 1938.
He enlisted in the Army at the beginning of World War IIand served in all combat theaters. He was in charge of air armament planning for the Normandy invasion in 1944.
While in England he met Rose, a nurse from Iowa, on a blind date. They married in 1944.
After the war, he planned and directed sections of technical intelligence at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He also was director of intelligence targeting and director of intelligence analysis in Korea for the Air Force.
In 1956, he went to the Pentagon as director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Next, he was sent overseas to the European Command Headquarters in Paris to be director of special intelligence for the American staff in Europe.
One of his daughters, Jean Kraft of Carmel, Ind., pointed out how her father balanced his life: “He briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Eisenhower, but at the same time he came home and put on puppet shows for his children.”
As a USAF colonel, Mr. Hausman taught basic nuclear physics at Kansas University. He retired from the Air Force in 1963 after 22 years in the military. He received a Bronze Star and an Air Medal.
In 1961, Mr. Hausman and his family lived near Paris. His children challenged him to write a book, so he did. All seven of them appeared as characters in Mystery at Sans Souci, which was published in 1978.
The father in the book told his children every place is “too far from Fountain Square.”
Mr. Hausman returned to his hometown in 1963 to work for his family's business, W.F. Hausman Co. He was a salesman for the wholesale grocer's supply until it closed in 1980.
In 1964 he ran as a Democratic candidate for Cincinnati City Council and in 1965 for state representative. He lost both elections but occupied himself by his involvement in many organizations — including the Greater Price Hill Improvement Association, the East Price Hill Improvement Association, the Elder Alumni, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Catholic War Veterans, the Toastmasters and the Xavier Living Endowment.
Ten years after his return he began writing his boyhood recollections. Readers were taken back to their own childhoods by his accounts of disastrous haircuts and discovering the truth about Santa, in which he concludes, “I could be a happy dumb kid or an unhappy smart one.”
Mr. Hausman and his wife moved to Indianapolis in 1994.
Besides his wife and daughter, surviving are four other daughters, Mary Kahle of West Palm Beach, Fla., Anne Rollo of St. Louis, Rose Goodwin of Richmond, Va., and Margaret Hausman of Vienna, Va.; two sons, James Hausman Jr. of Twisp, Wash., and John Hausman of West Palm Beach; and 15 grandchildren.
Visitation is 9 a.m. Saturday followed by Mass of Christian burial at 11 a.m. at St. Elizabeth Seton Church, 10655 Haverstick Road in Carmel, Ind. Burial will follow in Our Lady of Peace Cemetery in Indianapolis.
Memorials: Xavier University, 3800 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati 45207, or Alzheimer's Association, 644 Linn St., Suite 1026, Cincinnati 45203.
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