John Benjamin Austin Jr.

John was born on October 11, 1922 at Portland, Oregon. He was the second child and only son of John “Jack” Benjamin Austin who was a baker and Regina Caroline Eberle Austin. His older sister was named Regina and his younger sister was named Audrey who died in an accident when she was four years old.

When John was about 5, the family moved from Oregon to Long Beach, California. There he attended Catholic school and his inquisitive nature often got him into trouble. On his first day, he was issued a pencil. Not having seen one before, he took out his pocketknife and cut open the pencil so he could see how it was made.

During his early teen years, his family lived in the La Cresenta/Montrose area of southern California. John was very athletic. He played baseball on the school team and was on the track and field team. He had an especially large German shepherd dog that he loved dearly. They spent many hours together running through the hills. John claims that his dog usually got tired before he did.

He worked at the local stables mainly because the owner would let him and his sister ride the horses through the hills. Riding the horses and running with his dogs were some of his fondest memories.

John fell in love with cars during these years and began working on them. Ultimately, he became an expert mechanic on cars. This would eventually become his life’s work.

In his later teens, his family moved to Los Angeles where he attended Dorsey High School. It is here that he met Colleen Patricia Carroll who would eventually become his wife. They planned to be married, but World War II intervened. e

Upon the attack at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941, he and several of his buddies went down to enlist. Because most were under 18, they needed a parent’s signature, John’s dad refused as he wanted John to graduate in June and then he could enlist. This turned out to be a fateful decision as his buddies enlisted in the Navy and were all lost at sea when the ship they were on was sunk.

In June 1942, John enlisted in the Army Air Corp. He became a gunner on bombers, mainly B17’s and B24’s. He was first sent to North Africa for a very short time and then to Burma. He finished the war flying missions out of northeastern India. During his time overseas, he was in at least three plane crashes. He achieved the rank of sergeant and was awarded a bronze star. He was honorably discharged from the military in February 1946. An interesting aspect of his military service is that his assignments resulted in him traveling completely around the world.

After John enlisted, Colleen broke off the engagement and they had almost no contact during the war. In fact, because Colleen and her mother had moved during the war, John had no way of contacting her when he got home. So, he spent 2 weeks looking up everyone that he knew that knew her until he finally located her best girl friend. Through her he was able to once again see Colleen. Upon their first meeting after all of these years, she agreed to marry him and they were married on March 18th, two weeks later.

They moved to Burbank, California and raised three children, John III, Michael, and David. John supported his family by working as a master auto mechanic. He had the ability to listen to a noise a car was making and know what the problem was so that he could fix it right the first time. After his children were grown, he finished his career working on large trucks retiring in 1989.

The delight of his later years was his grandchildren, Nicholas, Joy, John IV, Mitch, and Miles. He loved holding them as babies and doting on them as they grew up.

His wife of 46 years passed away after a long illness in 1992. He had lovingly and faithfully cared for her and her loss was devastating to him. Ultimately, he began to once again do what he had done for many years, freely giving to his neighbors and friends his mechanical skills. He was a free “handyman” to anyone who had a need, fixing plumbing and electrical problems as well as doing carpentry and painting. Additionally, he took up golf. This gave him many hours of pleasure and he was constantly competing against himself working to improve his game. Sadly, due to macular degeneration, he had to give up the game in the year 2000.

After a stroke in 2003, he moved to Thousand Oaks, California to be near two of his sons. He died on March 2, 2010 at the age of 87.