“Uncle Jimmy.”
That’s how James “Jimmy” Boehling was known to many priests around the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, according to Father Mike Boehling, the vicar general of the diocese.
St. Benedict Church in Richmond bade farewell to the World War II veteran on Jan. 14 with a funeral Mass concelebrated by several priests, with Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout present. The elder Boehling was born May 23, 1925, and died on Jan. 8 at 100 years old.
A fixture at the parish in Richmond’s Museum District, Boehling was born and lived his entire life in a house directly across the street from the church; he predated the construction of the parish by several years.
Indeed, much of the Museum District itself had yet to be built when Jimmy was born. Father Boehling, Jimmy’s nephew and the principal celebrant at his funeral Mass, said that Boehling himself liked to joke: “I lived in the Museum District before there were any museums!”
A graduate of Benedictine College Prep, Boehling was known to members of St. Benedict for his regular Mass attendance, after which he could often be seen sitting on his porch across the street from the church. He moved out of his lifetime home and into a care facility just a few months before his death.
Among the dwindling number of veterans of World War II, Boehling was also known for his extraordinary tour of duty near the end of that conflict, during which he served briefly as a navigator aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress.
That aircraft stalled over Germany during severe weather on April 21, 1945; Boehling managed to bail out of the airplane at 25,000 feet “with only one arm attached to the parachute,” according to Father Boehling.
Jimmy landed safely; the B-17 crashed, with Boehling the only survivor.
After the war, Boehling returned home and received an accounting degree from the University of Richmond; he subsequently worked at the family-run F.H. Boehling Feed and Seed in downtown Richmond before moving on to several other local firms.
A well-known name around the Richmond region, the Boehling family turned out en masse for Jimmy’s funeral, which Father Boehling remarked on during his homily.
“Today we gather as a big Boehling family,” he said. “But we also gather as a family of faith.”
Father Boehling said that as children he and his twin brother would often ask their Uncle Jimmy to relay the story of his one-in-a-million survival during World War II. He would always oblige them, the priest said.
“Yet the real story that defined Jimmy’s life,” he said, “took place not so much over the skies of Europe in the spring of 1945, as it did right here, right here on this very block,” where Jimmy was baptized and spent his life.
That baptism, Father Boehling said, began “a century-long pilgrimage of faith,” one that played out largely on the same block on Hanover Avenue, which was regularly filled with generations of Boehling family members.
His faith was lived out at St. Benedict, Father Boehling said, “day after day, Mass after Mass, Rosary after Rosary, visit after visit after visit to Holy Cross Cemetery.”
“Today, we have the humbling honor of celebrating this Mass with him one last time,” Father Boehling said. “And today, we have the honor of accompanying Uncle Jimmy one more time to Holy Cross Cemetery.”
Boehling’s coffin both entered and departed the parish draped in an American flag, a reminder of his service to his country during a conflict from which very few veterans remain.
In remarks near the end of the Mass, Bishop Knestout described Boehling as “unassuming,” “modest” and humble.
Boehling reflected the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Bishop Knestout said, including joy, peace and hope — and perhaps most visibly faith, particularly his devotion to regular Mass attendance at St. Benedict.
“He had his own door here, with a key as well,” Bishop Knestout joked.
Boehling is survived by one sibling, Dick. In 2021, Jimmy told his college alma mater that he had “so many memories” of his lifetime home on Hanover.
“In the five bedrooms upstairs, my seven sisters lived in two of them, my four brothers and I lived in two others, and my parents lived in the main bedroom,” he said at the time.
Reflecting on the plane crash that he was locally known for surviving, Boehling said: “It doesn’t worry me. It’s a miracle I survived. And I thank God for that.”
Bishop Knestout, meanwhile, said the St. Benedict community “gives thanks to God for the light that he had and that he shared with all of us.”
“We pray,” the bishop said, “that he will hear those words: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the Father’s rest.’”