James Charles Mitchell

April 3, 1935

September 30, 2025

All star athlete, proud father, devoted friend, quick witted and sentimental storyteller, successful businessman. Raised in Clyde, Ohio, where he was an all star 3 sport athlete and state champion trackstar, he helped in his father’s funeral home business, worked summers on the family farmland and enjoyed summers at Lakeside Chataqua on Lake Erie with his grandmother. Jim was incredibly family focused. Graduating from Ohio State University in 1957, he was the consummate fraternity brother of Beta Theta Pi, remaining connected with his brothers throughout his life. He remained an old school Buckeye at heart. After college, Jim served our country in the Air National Guard, an honorable discharge in 1964. Meeting his bride on a fraternity double date at Ohio State, Jim married his beloved wife Diane Barr and for 65 years as life partners created a wide ranging adventure that included two children, James Peter and Betsy. After brief stops in Cleveland and Florida, they built an engaged civic life in Marietta that spanned 60 years. It included membership of the country club, involvement in the school system, rotary and city life as a business man, with a wide ranging and important friend group. Jim was a long time member of the First Presbyterian Church. Jim’s professional career included a diversity of interests; first as a bank examiner with the Federal Reserve in Cleveland, then President of First Bank in Marietta. Other business endeavors included real estate development and a late career switch to oil and gas development in the southeastern Ohio boom Jim was a family oriented husband and proud father who supported his family in all our individual endeavors and collectively too, spending quality time on family trips. He was keen to know and keep our small but extended family connected and enjoyed knowing our lineage; he even compiled our family history with roots in America from 1630. Jim’s easy broad smile welcomed you to see his caring, generous and sentimental side which always won the day. Equally on display was his stoic midwestern self, quiet, opinionated and stubborn in that self reliant manner. Jim was the remaining center of our family and will be greatly missed by his children, their families and his large network of friends. Online condolences may be made at www.hadleyfh.com.