| I, James Byron Dean, was born February 8, 1931, Marion, Indiana. My parents, Winton Dean and Mildred Dean, formerly Mildred Wilson, and myself existed in the State of Indiana until I was six years of age. Dad’s work with the government caused a change so Dad as a dental mechanic was transferred to California. There we lived until the fourth year. Mom became ill and passed out of my life at the age of nine. I never knew the reason for Mom’s death, in fact it still preys on my mind. I had always lived such a talented life. I studied violin, played in concerts, tap-danced on theater stages, but most of all I like art, to mold and create things with my hands. I came back to Indiana to live with my uncle. I lost the dancing and violin but not the art. I think my life will be devoted to art and dramatics. And there are so many different fields of art it would be hard to foul-up, and if I did, there are so many different things to do - farm, sports, science, geology, coaching, teaching music. I got it and I know if I better myself that there will be no match. A fellow must have confidence. When living in California my young eyes experienced many things. It was also my luck to make three visiting trips to Indiana, going and coming a different route each time. I have been in almost every state west of Indiana. I remember all. My hobby, or what I do in my spare time, is motorcycle. I know a lot about them mechanically and I love to ride. I have been in a few races and have done well. I own a small cycle myself. When I’m not doing that I’m usually engaged in athletics, the heartbeat of every American boy. As one strives to make a goal in a game there should be a goal in this crazy world for each of us. I hope I know where mine is, anyway, I’m after it. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Dubois, this is the hardest subject to write about considering the information one knows of himself, I ever attempted. “My Case Study” to Roland Dubois Fairmount High School Principal, 1948 Text courtesy of Mr. Marcus Winslow Jr. through Fairmount Historical Museum |
| Jimmy was born on February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana, at 2 o’clock in the morning. The apartment house was the Seven Gables, situated on the corner of 4th and McClure, right across the street from the train station, which today is closed down. Marion (Grant County) is a city 10 miles away from Fairmount, with 30,000 residents. Jimmy was the only child of Mildred Wilson, born on September 15, 1910, in Gas City, and Winton Dean, born in Fairmount on January 17, 1908. They married on July 26, 1930. Mildred was the daughter of John Wilson and Minnie May Slaughter, farmers. Jimmy was the grandson of Charles Dean and Emma Woollen, Quakers and farmers who lived in Fairmount. He was the great-grandson of Cal Dean, who died in Fairmount in 1918 at the age of 69, a cattle auctioneer. In 1936, Winton accepted a transfer from the Marion Hospital to the Sawtelle VA Hospital in California. He was a dental technician. The family moved and rented a little house on 23rd street in Santa Monica. This house no longer exists Mildred is a woman with artistic talent and she’s decided to make her little prince somebody special. She’s absolutely devoted to the child, creating a tight relationship. She reads him poetry, takes him to violin lessons, teaches him dancing and tap-dancing, and would set up a little theater made of cardboard where they would play with puppets. But Mildred gets sick. It’s the fall of 1939. Diagnosis is cancer. Jimmy is present at his mother’s deterioration and finally she dies in less that a year, leaving him devastated. Emma Dean, Jimmy’s grandma, had traveled from Fairmount to help the family out. Jimmy’s father had told her he didn’t want to raise the child and it was decided that Jimmy was to come back to Indiana. Jimmy’s trip back with Mildred’s body was rushed. Winton wanted her to be buried in Indiana. The train making the endless trip from California to Indiana was The Challenger. During the trip Jimmy would go to the freight wagon to make sure his mother’s coffin was still there... On the arrival, he wanted to meet the conductor and asked for a souvenir. He was given a cup and saucer with the monogram of The Challenger that Jimmy always had with him and are now on display at the Fairmount Historical Museum.. They arrived in Marion on July 16, 1940. It was a sunny day, and it seems to be around noon in the picture that shows him with his grandmother, standing at the train station by the railroad tracks, as they just got off the train. That incredible picture belongs to the Fairmount Historical Museum. Mildred was buried at Grant Memorial Park Cemetery four days later. Her husband didn’t show up. It was July 20th, 1940. The tombstone says: "WIFE-MILDRED MARIE DEAN, September 15, 1910 - July 14, 1940 Jimmy said years later, to the reporter Wally Atkinson, during an interview: “My mother died on me when I was nine years old. What did she expect me to do? Do it all myself?” Winton Dean stayed in California and came to Indiana very few times. He remarried and died very old. He is buried in Fairmount. (February 21, 1995) Ortense Dean, his sister who was seven years older, had married a Quaker farmer, Marcus Winslow. They were living in Fairmount in a beautiful Victorian house, where they were engaged in farming. Ortense was the organist at the Quaker Church, not far from their house, by the shore of the pond of Back Creek. She was quite a respected member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and was born on April 1st, 1901, in Fairmount. Marcus Winslow was born on December 15th, 1900, also in Fairmount. They took care of Jimmy. In Fairmount, Jimmy was raised like a son by his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow. The house, built in 1904, has been in the Winslow family for generations. Little by little, Jimmy was adjusting himself to his new life. He quit violin lessons (...”the violin was buried with my mother,” he told Hedda Hopper in 1955), but he learned piano, attended school and was spoiled by family and neighbors. On some cold winter afternoons he would play Billy the Kid for them, a story his mother used to read to him while in California. He became more and more proficient in art. His artworks from seventh and eighth grades astonish us as we see them at the Museum: trucks, roots, machines, planes. Attempting a trapeze act in the barn, he fell, losing his two front teeth in the process. He had to use a bridge his whole life. In that barn, a treasure is waiting for us: a right handprint and a right footprint were made in fresh cement by Jimmy at 13 years of age. He wrote: “Jim Dean 44". Jimmy attended West Ward Elementary; a traditional school for the country children. The building no longer exists. Jimmy went to school in the mornings on the school bus. Back from school, he used to color with crayons while listening to the radio. Those were big days for the radio with terrific dramatic shows that were making him dream. Ortense says that doing the dishes after dinner he would confide in her: he wanted to play in the radio shows some day and also play in movies. “So intelligent and mature for his age, so pretty and sweet to be a boy...” In November, 1943, Markie was born, the youngest son of Ortense and Marcus Winslow. Jimmy attended high school from September 1943 until May 1949. His obsession with excellence caused him to be a distinguished student. He was in the band (drums) and even with his poor eyesight, he stood out in sports. His myopia started in 1945 and put him a little apart from the world, and according to Francois Truffaut, “Jimmy seems always absent, playing more to himself than to others...” The drama teacher captured immediately his intuitive acting talent, the way he had to concentrate attention in himself, his ability to manipulate emotions in others. The sharp mind, but above all, the way he had to look, convinced her that he was an uncut diamond. Miss Adeline Nall was born in Marion in 1906. She was the head of the school’s Drama Club in Fairmount High School. Right there the actor James Dean took his first little steps. When Jimmy wasn’t at school or working with his uncle at the farm, he was at Mr. Carter’s shop where he learned “all about mechanics,” as he liked to say. This kind of second home is still standing, and Mrs. Carter takes care of the place with love. In 1947, Mr. Marvin Carter sold Jimmy his first motorcycle, a WHIZZER CZECHOSLOVAKIAN, “one and a half horsepower that raced fifty miles an hour,” said Mr. Carter. Jimmy would do little trips to Marion and the movies. The road that Jimmy used to drive hasn’t changed and still can be driven like in those days, by Jonesboro to the east, winding through the golden corn fields. When he was 17, he switched to an Indian 500, also from Mr. Carter’s shop, and years after he also owned an Italian Lancia, an English Triumph T-110 and a Norton 500cc. Each time Jimmy came back to Indiana he visited the Carters. From his last visit in February, 1955, we acquire beautiful pictures taken from inside the shop by the photographer Dennis Stock. Ortense asked Jimmy to perform something at the church one Sunday. Mrs. Nall helped him to prepare “Bars,” a little monologue about the danger of alcohol abuse. It was his first performance in front of an audience and the stage was this one (pictured)... Jimmy played with a chair, going around it, sitting and getting into it to make it look like bars. It was brilliant. Jimmy stood out in all the plays done at Fairmount High School, but people remembered him best as Frankenstein in a Halloween Revue. He made his own makeup and used to tell how the members of the audience got scared when he showed up strolling through the seats. Also with Mrs. Nall he won first place at the Indiana State Contest with “The Madman” by Charles Dickens (Pickwick Papers) on April 9th, 1949, and saw his photo in the newspaper for the first time! (Marion Chronicle Tribune, April 10th, 1949). Jimmy said to the reporter Howard Thompson: “My father was a farmer, but he did have this remarkable adeptness with his hands. Whatever abilities I may have crystallized there in High School, when I was trying to prove something to myself - that I could do it, I suppose.” The young Jim Dean was, in the eyes of Fairmount, one of its most precious pupils. On Graduation Day, May 16th, 1949, he won a prize as an outstanding student in art and sports. He was selected to read at the ceremony and was voted as best all-around athlete of his generation by the other students. Jimmy wanted to go to California and study acting at UCLA, and his uncle and aunt agreed. According to an old Quaker tradition, you need to let the person choose his own way, although their dream was for him to take over the farm, but they weren’t opposed to his leaving. Jimmy was going to live with his father while attending the University and work to support his studies. A party was announced in the local newspaper: “James Dean will be honored with a farewell this Monday evening in his grandparent’s home, Charles and Emma Dean. Jim, who is going to leave us on Tuesday to move to Santa Monica, is planning to enroll in the University of California, Los Angeles, to take drama classes.” Refreshments were served and someone played at the piano, “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Jimmy took the train in Marion on May 31st, 1949. |
| EARLY JIMMY |
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