James Husler was born in 1915, the son of immigrants, his father immigrating alone from Switzerland in 1894 at the age of 24 while his mother (age 14) immigrated from Silesia with her brother and older sister to be joined by their mother and youngest sister when they came over in about 1903. James only completed elementary school before he went to help in his father’s Metal Shop, but was always proud to say that he had “gone to college” (open house).
In 1942, at age 27, he enlisted in the Army to support the war (WW2) effort and entered into the medical corp. After spending some time as a Medic in Germany, he made his way into the ranks of the Officers and was assigned the responsibility of setting up an Adhoc hospital in England. He used to brag about how they were so well organized that they were performing operations in the hallways.
One story we used to hear regarded the meeting of James and Louise. Louise was with the Nurses assigned to the AdHoc hospital James was organizing. One evening, James was offered some fudge that the nurses (Louise) had concocted using their helmets as cooking utensils. After expressing his opinion pertaining to the quality of the finished product, he left - adorned with the remainder. It must have been love at first site.
After serving his country, James followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the Ironworkers Union and getting a job with Soule Steel. At one point in his career, he had a disagreement with the foreman and got fired, but being the stubborn sort (and a union member), he forced them to give him his job back. of course, this didn’t make the situation any better, so he decided a change in career was in order and put the medical training he recieved in the military to work. James went to work for the City and County of San Francisco as a paramedic. At various times, he would provide emergency medical treatment in the back of an amulance, assist the police department in bringing in involuntary psychiatric patients and even became a very well known and appreciated ambulance dispatcher (the position he had when it was time to retire). One time, after accidentally putting his hand through a window, Bill went to one of the neihborhood emergency rooms to get some stitches and when the attendant saw the name in the registry, was greeted with “Oh, you must be Jimmy’s boy” and promptly stitched up with twice the number of stitches one might have expected.
James was always very resourceful. As a staunch member of the Republican party, he participated in many election campaigns for their candidates. He even outfitted his stationwagon with some very large loudspeakers and a record player which he had modified to accept a microphone. Family lore is that the speakers were originally part of the city wide public address system, but ended up in a debrie pile after the 1906 earthquake. He drove around around the city during the campaigns, played patriotic music and used the microphone to speak in favor of his candidate.
One year, he was named an honarary indian and rode bareback in full Indian ceremonial dress for 4 hours in a parade. For weeks afterwards, he was unable sit or walk comfortably. For years afterwards, wondered if the real reason he was named an honorary indian was that none of the real indians wanted to ride bareback that long.
James always wanted to be a writer and entered many writing contests - everything from short stories to fortune cookie fortunes to poetry - he even belonged to a poetry society for a while. While he did win a few awards along the way, my favorite was in the fortune cookie contest - the award he won was “most prolific” having enter over 100 fortunes.
He died of a heart attack while walking the dog in his home neihborhood. As coincidence would have it, the yard he collapsed in happened to belong to a fellow member of Portalhurst Presbyterian Church, so the call Bill got was from the church before the officials actually ever had a chance to establish next of kin.

Military Service from 7/13/1942 to 1/25/1946.
Hororable Discharge, US Army, Serial No. 39845082

James and Louise were married and bought their first house at 1626 Ulloa where their first child (James jr) was born. James sr applied for a delayed Birth Certificate in 1954. The family was living at 173 Rousseau St. in SF. They were forced to move from this location due to the construction of the Cross Town Freeway that runs from the Bayview district to Daly City/Westlake, loosely following along Alemany Blvd. and currently known as Highway 280. They moved to 2442 Funston Ave. where they lived the rest of their lives together.