James William Andersen was born March 10th, 1944 in Torrance, California to Margaret and William Andersen.
Jim quickly stole the heart of his big sister, Jean, and they became best buds.
The Andersens moved frequently and Jean worked diligently to keep her little brother out of the mischief he was constantly seeking.
After graduating high school, albeit barely (there’s that mischief again), Jim entered the United States Marine Corps where he swore the boot camp food was the best he’d ever had. No one else agreed with him.
Jim left the service in 1964 to help care for his family.
As the years went by, Jim’s itch for adventure was ever-present and he did things that made everyone, even himself, question his sanity.
He had an extreme phobia of flying, so he got his pilot’s license which terrified everyone - including himself.
In 1974, he shanghaied three others into being the first people to ever walk from the highest point in the contiguous United States (Mt. Whitney, Ca) to the lowest point in the western hemisphere (Badwater, Death Valley).
After achieving that feat, he picked up his life in Antioch, California where he had a great job and a house with a swimming pool and moved to one of the smallest, most remote towns in the state of Nevada; Austin. Dubbed “the town that died laughing”, Austin had a couple hundred residents and not much else.
For Jim, though, it was perfect and he always said, “it felt like putting on a comfortable old pair of slippers. I was home.” Having no prior business experience, he purchased a restaurant anyway.
He ran the Stagecoach Inn for several years until one day he was in the back cooking when a Lander County Sherriff Sergeant poked his head into the kitchen and asked if he’d be interested in “packing a badge”. Looking at the long line of cheeseburger orders hanging on the wheel, he set his spatula down and said, “yep”.
The next thing he knew, he was a Lander County Deputy Sherriff.
Jim’s career path sort of followed those type of “well, why not?” scenarios. He was skilled in a wide variety of things which led to a wide variety of jobs including but not limited to: journeyman welder, glove cutter, electrician, fuel truck driver, service station attendant, author, security guard, restaurant owner/cook, bar tender, mail carrier, driller’s helper, volunteer ambulance attendant, secretary of the fire department, geological survey laborer, Deputy Sherriff, and Justice of the Peace.
By and large, though, the job he was best at was being a father and husband.
Jim met the love of his life, Val, in Austin as he was making his rounds as Deputy Sherriff.
An Austin native, Val was passing through the bar after her waitressing shift one night when this slick cop walked in, thumbs in belt loops, and asked for her ID.
She was 25 years old. They got to know each other more in her position as relief dispatcher for the Lander County Sheriff’s Department, and they used secret ten-codes over the radio to communicate things like “the coffee is ready”.
He charmed her with evening serenades with his guitar, wild spirit, and very big sense of humor. They married in 1986 and welcomed daughter Withanee in 1987.
Val had two sons from a previous marriage, Josh and Jed Rudelbach, so Jim instantly gained a family. He always was remembered saying that Val was the best thing that ever happened to him and without her “he’d be buried under a pile of socks”.
Jim and Val had many adventures in Austin and later southern California and Nevada when they could no longer stomach the harsh winters.
Together they explored the Mojave desert, worked and owned a couple of their own gold claims, golfed, went metal detecting, rode their four-wheelers, went brewery hopping, soaked in hot springs, watched shooting stars, and camped frequently.
Jim spent his last years in Pahrump, Nevada, where he played guitar in a worship band at his beloved church, Faith Fellowship. He loved worshiping the Lord and every one of his church friends dearly.
Jim and daughter Withanee were inseparable from the moment he saw her and his childlike spirit lent itself to 34 years of adventures together.
He never missed a single sporting event of her entire life and has all the embarrassing home movies to prove it.
Early lessons included teaching her to ride a bike, drive a manual transmission, shoot a gun to things later in life like how to write a book, be a good spouse to her husband and follow God without question. Jim and Withanee would each light up when the other entered the room and they constantly got into mischief when Val wasn’t looking.
They had a secret handshake, inside jokes a’ plenty, and a relationship that was more than just father-daughter but rather, best friends.
It was hard for Jim when Withanee got married, but he fell in love with her husband Shawn, and they became a trio of buddies that spent countless days running amuck and laughing until they cried.
In 2017, Withanee, her husband Shawn and brother Josh recreated her dad’s walk from Mt. Whitney to Death Valley, with Val and Jim following behind in a motorhome as their support party.
She did this to honor her dad, and it was the best week of any of their lives.
Jim lived a life of adventure, filled with love and laughter at every turn. Every day was packed with wonder, new ideas, and really bad dad jokes.
He loved his birthday and would remind everyone months in advance, once even talking Withanee into giving him all his presents a week early. Jim was an esteemed humo
r author and published two books along with several articles for Nevada Magazine, the Battle Mountain Bugle, the Reese River Reveille and had a running online blog, Rurally Yours.
He and daughter Withanee have a third book currently in the publishing process about the trek from Whitney to Death Valley, entitled Walk of Ages: From Mt. Whitney to Death Valley – A Generational Odyssey.
Jim Andersen was dearly loved by all and is survived by his wife Val Andersen, daughter Withanee Andersen Milligan, stepsons Jed and Josh Rudelbach, sister Jean Hardin, niece Tammy Fielder and his best four-legged friend, Emma the Cat.
A celebration of life for Jim will be held at Faith Fellowship Church in Pahrump, Nevada on June 18th at 11a.m. The family has asked that attendees wear Hawaiian shirts or other bright colors in honor of Jim. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating the to Go Fund Me (or type in “Help the Andersens” into the Go Fund Me site) set up for Val to be able to cover significant medical expenses or donating to Faith Fellowship church in Pahrump, NV.
