Jack of All Trades

Jay (Jack Jr.) Wilson '27 who now, according to one of his publishers, spends his life on a farm in Hope, Me., "raising potatoes so he can do more writing and writing so he can raise more potatoes," has plenty of variety of background for his stories.

Born in Leningrad, Russia, he spent his early childhood around the naval bases of the Imperial Russian Navy for which his father was constructing submarines and later traveled extensively in Europe, acquiring a comprehensive knowledge of the Russian, German, Balkan and Scandinavian peoples.

After college, a New Jersey bank cured Mr. Wilson of confinement so he tried selling life insurance. Two fights had cured him of prize-fighting ambitions. He started writing in 1932 while still an insurance broker but right after the hurricane of 1938 he moved his wife and family to their farm in Maine. There he keeps out of mischief by being an inventor, a cabinet-maker, a poultryman, an orchardist, an officer in the Artillery Reserve Corps, and a maker of ship models as well as a writer.

Besides his short stories which appear in Collier's, Liberty, AmericanMagazine, This Week and some foreign publications, the products of his farm are potatoes, blueberries, chickens, and apples.