Jim Schaap Celebrates 90 Years with Friends, Family

Surrounded by a room full of friends and family, longtime San Bernardino resident Jim “Cowboy” Schaap blew out the birthday candles on his cake for the 90th time in his life. The milestone celebration held at The Mug restaurant in San Bernardino on Nov. 19 –Schaap’s birth date—was commemorated with pizza, beverages, chocolate cake topped with a cowboy hat and vanilla ice cream. “I really enjoyed it,” Schaap said at his San Bernardino residence, a city he’s called home since 1960. “There were some people there that I haven’t seen in four or five years.” Between inside jokes, booming laughter and heartfelt greetings, Schaap’s friends and family reminisced on their favorite memories of the birthday boy, often finding it difficult to choose just one. Randy Cooley, who met Schaap 15 years ago after saying hello to him at Bank of America, recalled a story Schaap once told him about his service as a paratrooper in the United States Army during WWII—specifically, a jump he made on Friday the 13th. “He told me the first sergeant came around and said, ‘If anybody is superstitious, you don’t have to make this jump,’” Cooley explained. “(Schaap) said, ‘Here I am, 19 years old, in a plane…I think my luck has run out, so I’m going to go ahead and make the jump.’ I’m riveted by this story. I said, ‘So you jumped?’ He said, ‘Yeah!’ I said, ‘Did you live?’ He said, ‘Yeah! I’m still sitting here, aren’t I?’” That nighttime jump was made in Fort Benning, Georgia where Schaap attended paratrooper training. “Half the class wouldn’t do it, but I made the jump okay. I’m not superstitious,” Schapp recalled, taking his discharge paperwork from his wallet, where he keeps it stored. Schapp immigrated from Holland to the United States with his family at four years old. His family traveled by boat and arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey. From there, they rode by train to New Orleans, and then out to the west coast, eventually settling on dairy land in a town called Hynes, now Paramount, California, near Long Beach. “I’d get up, feed the cows and milk them,” said Schaap of daily dairy life growing up. “I just helped maintain the dairy, more or less—and in those days, we milked the cows by hand, we didn’t have machines.” At 18 he was drafted into the Army during WWII and began his service in March 1943, joining the 76th infantry before becoming a paratrooper. He and three others were injured in the Philippines by landmine efforts of Japanese troops, killing a few American soldiers. Schaap recovered and then was sent to Japan for three months before being honorably discharged from the 187th Infantry, Glider Battallion on March 9, 1946 at Fort MacArthur, California. He is the recipient of a Purple Heart. After the war, Schaap returned to California and soon began driving trucks. He earned the nickname “Cowboy” for his transportation of dairy cows from Utah to California. In 1973, he married Alberta Schapp, who passed away in 2013. “We were married for 40 years, four months and 20 days,” Schaap reminisced. The couple’s son, Bruce, said his favorite memories with Schaap were the times they spent at local racing speedways. “We spent a lot of time going to races,” said Bruce, who like his father served in the Army and became a truck driver. “Those are some nice memories.” Schaap said he enjoyed racing because he could “watch and meet new and different people.” Schaap has traveled around the country and has visited Talladega, Alabama, Indianapolis, Indiana, and frequented the local Riverside, Ontario and Orange Show raceways. Greg Schiedecker, whose father was a close friend of Schaap’s, said, “I’m ecstatic to see that… he lived until he’s 90. The opportunity that that man had and the things he’s gotten to see in his lifetime, in not only auto racing, but in everything else, what a fantastic time to be alive. Jim will always be in our hearts. I’m hoping we’re here five years from now, too, doing this again.”