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Obituary for Joe James Ingram Jr.
September 19, 1922 - November 12, 2015 Joe James (Jim) Ingram, Jr. departed this life on Thursday, November 12. Jim was a positive person who never said an unkind word about anyone and looked at the circumstances of his life as blessings. Jim was a loving son, husband, father, and grandfather, and he received much love and grace in return. The only child of Joseph James Ingram and Willie Blanche Asher Ingram of Atlanta, Georgia, Jim spent his childhood years in Atlanta and Madison, Georgia. He attended Boys High and Georgia Tech. During World War II, he served in the U. S. Army Air Corps as a flight instructor for B-25 bomber pilots before graduating from Georgia Tech. After graduation, Jim earned an MSEE degree at Purdue University and began a distinguished engineering career at the Endicott, New York labs of IBM. At IBM, Jim played central roles in the development of the company's early computers. In his early career, he was engineering project manager for the IBM 1401, which became the company's most successful computer through the early 1960s. Jim worked on pioneering data communications systems at IBM Nordic Labs, in Stockholm, Sweden, and at San Jose, California before moving to Raleigh in 1966. At the IBM Raleigh lab, Jim joined the team that developed IBM's retail store systems and worked in that organization until retiring in 1987. Jim was an avid tennis player and competed at local and state tournaments well into his 80s. He was a devoted fan of college sports, especially Georgia Tech. For almost 50 years, Jim was an active member of Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, where he served as a deacon and elder, and in other leadership roles. He participated in a landmark conference sponsored by North Carolina State University that sought to foster the common interests and goals of science and religion, and in many other ways tried to bring his Christian ideals into his work and friendships to help make a better world. His church family brought him great joy and numerous friendships. Jim was preceded in death by his parents and his wife, Margaret Ruth Ingram. He is survived by his daughters, Kathryn Ann Ingram of San Francisco, California and Rebecca Ingram Cameron of Roswell, Georgia, and by his son, James Harrison Ingram and daughter-in-law, Patricia Margaret Reid, of Raleigh. He has three grandchildren, Timothy McMillan Cameron and Raymond Patterson Cameron III of Washington, DC, and William Bracy Ingram of Houston, Texas. A memorial service will be held to celebrate his life on Monday, November 16 at 2:00 p.m at Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church. A visitation will follow the service. His burial service will be held on Saturday, on November 21, at 12 pm at Harmony Baptist Church Cemetery, Eatonton, Georgia. The family requests that no flowers be given; instead, donations to Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church, 4921 Six Forks Road, Raleigh, NC 27609, or to a favorite charity are deeply appreciated. Funeral arrangements are through Brown-Wynne Funeral Home in Raleigh and Vining Ivy Hill Chapel in Eatonton, Georgia.
