Rev. Bob James, educator, Temple campus minister

BOB JAMES had an interesting connection with Abraham Lincoln. He got to shake the hand of a man who shook the hand of the Great Emancipator.

The man was his grandfather Fred Parmalee James, who was a 14-year-old page in Congress when Lincoln was president. He rode a horse between Congress and the White House to deliver messages, and once attended a reception at which he shook Lincoln's hand.

Shaking the hand of the man who shook Lincoln's hand was a point of pride for James, who went on to distinguish himself as a clergyman and educator, and campus minister at Temple University for 23 years.

The Rev. Robert L. James Jr., former director of Temple's Church and World Institute, whose varied interests embraced cultural diversity, racism and poverty, died Jan. 6. He was 98 and lived in Wyndmoor, Montgomery County.

He served as campus minister at San Jose State, Cornell and the University of New Hampshire before arriving at Temple in 1957.

Bob's primary focus was on assisting students in connecting their individual religious faiths and convictions with their professional and working worlds.

Johnnie Stones, professor of psychology and chairman of the department of psychology at Norwich University, in Northfield, Vt., said that for students feeling the stress and turbulence of college life, Bob's office was an island of calm.

Some students used the religious-activities office as a home away from home, Stones said, and Bob cared for them all and for their welfare.

"He was my first academic-type mentor. He is responsible for the kind of career I have had."

Bob James was born in Ben Avon, Pa., near Pittsburgh, to Robert L. James and the former Elora Brandon. Bob received a bachelor's degree in sociology from Dartmouth University in 1933, and a masters of divinity from Yale University in 1937. He was ordained a minister in the United Church of Christ.

He became campus minister at Temple in 1957 and was the first director of the Church and World Institute. He retired in 1981 to assist the Russell Conwell Educational Services Center at Temple with scholarship development and grant writing.

Although he retired from Temple at age 89, he continued to participate in cultural-diversity workshops, and his latest paper was presented in 2005 to an association of multicultural educators.

Bob was the first chairman of the Fair Housing Council of Delaware Valley in the mid-'50s, and an early participant in the mid-'40s in the Tanguy Homestead, a cooperative-housing venture in Glen Mills.

He taught in Temple's Center for Contemporary Studies, which was an outgrowth of student demands during the '60s.

"He was committed to social justice, both personally and professionally," said his wife, Norma Arnold, a retired Temple administrator. "Very few people who met him or just knew him casually came away without some positive feeling."

Although Bob didn't have much time for outside activities, he once took a course at the Germantown Settlement Music School on the recorder.

He also traveled abroad every year, not as an ordinary tourist, but to find out what was going on in the world, his wife said.

The family made a plaque using his handprint to commemorate his connection with Lincoln. He also liked to say that he had shaken the hand of a friend who had shaken the hand of President Obama.

Besides his wife, he is survived by three sons, Robert, Benjamin and Timothy; a daughter, Barbara James Schue; more than 20 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his first wife of 54 years, Mary-Frances James.

Services: A Quaker memorial service will be arranged. Contributions may be made to the scholarship fund of the Russell Conwell Educational Services Center at Temple University, 1700 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, 19121.