Baseball and art would continue to play big roles throughout Carey’s life, Austin said, but when Carey graduated from school, the world was descending into conflict as WWII began. Carey also married his high school sweetheart, Victoria, at this time, Austin said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“He graduated in 1940 and joined the Navy in 1941. He chose diesel mechanic as his activity,” Austin said. “The best thing he liked about that time was when he wasn’t working on the boats, he was playing baseball.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>James J. Carey, seen here in uniform during his time serving the Navy stationed at Guantanamo Bay, was a lifelong baseball enthusiast. (Courtesy photo \/ Donna Austin)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
After getting out of the Navy after the war, Carey returned to Massachusetts, moving to his wife’s hometown, going to school for art, and getting a job at a company that made industrial light fixtures, Austin said. That process, which involved using furnaces to bake porcelain enamel onto steel, would inform Carey’s art, where he’d use a similar process to create art for churches in the Northeast.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“He got flying lessons in exchange for painting a picture of a flight instructors plane. He enjoyed piloting small four-seater airplanes all around the area he lived for years,” Austin said. “He was a great dad. He taught us all to play baseball.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Some examples of his art ended up in museums in that area, Austin said, including the Smithsonian and the Baltimore Museum of Art.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
After working for General Dynamics Shipbuilding for some years as a senior technical illustrator, Carey retired in 1978 and moved to Alaska to start a cattle farm near Hoonah, known as the Game Creek Farm Community.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“He built his home here in the 1980s. He did many chores, responsibilities, projects just to bless the community,” Austin said. “He was very busy.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Carey also found a new way to create art as he used the bounty of Alaska’s wilderness.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“He painted Alaskan pictures on the bear breads with octopus ink. He took it from the octopus that got caught in the nets,” Austin said. “His bear breads sold in Hoonah, Juneau and Skagway.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t