After spending a good portion of his life in the house on 18 W. Dravus Street, James Fielder was reportedly getting ready to move.
The former McClure Middle School teacher, founder of the Zigzag River Runners Company and the author of a true-crime book was planning to sell his childhood home to Seattle Pacific University in May of next year and move to Southern California. Fielder was frail health and battling a series of physical ailments, including cancer. He told a neighbor the warmer weather would do him good.
Tragically, it appears that Fielder never got the chance for that fresh start. A fire swept through the small, aging two-story home Friday evening located a few blocks from the SPU campus. Firefighters found a body in the second floor of the home. Annie Young, who owns the property next door, said that firefighters told her they thought the cause of the fire might have been faulty wiring.
While the King County Medical Examiner Monday did not release the identity of the body found in the home, neighbors, family and friends say they believe it is Fielder. His beloved truck, a black F-150 pickup, remained parked behind the home.
Fielder, 68, is survived by his daughter Nichole.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our neighbor,” wrote SPU spokeswoman Tracey Norlen in statement. “He was well known in the SPU community, and many faculty, staff, and students have known him over the years. Our prayers are with his family and friends.”
Described by those who knew him as a passionate man and a force of nature, Fielder was a charismatic hippy who wore his hair long, his beard bushy. He was never quite able to play by the establishment’s rules. As an unconventional teacher at McClure, Fielder would cast a spell over his students. He was known to teach his students math by having them read horse racing forms. He also got into trouble for one or two unplanned outings off campus.
“Jim could inspire young people like nobody’s business,” said ex-wife M’Lissa Hayes. “He was a very interesting, very eccentric man who had eclectic interests. His excitement was contagious.”
Hayes said Fielder loved nature and animals and he had a degree in Ornithology, the study of birds.
“Seriously, you couldn’t help but get excited about the yellow-breasted warbler when Jim talked about it,” Hayes said. “He had the ability to change the way you looked at things. He would stand in the desert and tell you about all the different aspects of it and you would never see the desert the same way again.”
Kim Gilnett, the marketing associate for the Division of Fine Arts at SPU, said Fielder was a strong environmentalist who had a real soft spot for animals.
He recalled one instance when Gilnett and his wife once lived in the same apartment building as Fielder. Apparently Fielder was raising kittens in the building’s laundry room and knocked on Gilnett’s door in a panic one day because he thought the landlord would get rid of the cats if they were found. Gilnett’s wife and Fielder found people to adopt all the kittens.
“Jim was such a unique character, it’s really quite a loss,” Gilnett said. “For me, I’ve known him for more than 30 years. It was a shock. He was bigger than life.”
Fielder ended up moving back into his childhood home to look after his ailing mother in 1993. Hayes said that when she passed away in the late 1990s, Fielder stayed on in the home.
An articulate man who loved to write, Fielder kept files one a wide variety of subjects. However, his only book was published in 2003. It was a true-crime story called “Slow Death,” based on a grisly case in New Mexico where members of a family would imprison and torture young women. Fielder also published articles for various publications on local news, including on schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau who had an affair with one of her students. Fielder was reportedly nearing the completion of a new book called “Endangered Species.”
Recently, his health had been getting worse. Young, who had known Fielder for about 15 years, said he loved to sit in the backyard of his home, listen to country music, soak his feet and play with his cat. While he could be a difficult neighbor on occasion, Young still liked him.
“I did have a warm place in my heart for him,” she said.