James Edward Garfield, Jim to everyone, died at his home in Cambridge on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, with his family around him. He was 71.
He was born December 7, 1954 to Richard and Helen “Dorothy” (Small) Garfield and grew up in Salem, where the friends he made at the Phillips Elementary School, in Scouts, in his church youth group and at Salem High School stayed friends for life. From high school he went to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, and from there into a career on and around the water that ended with his retirement as a superintendent of operations for Massport. Retirement did not keep him home: he took a security job at the Peabody Essex Museum and liked the daily traffic of people it brought.
He married Pamela Diamond in Marblehead on April 1, 1978, and they raised their children in Beverly. Photography and boating were his two passions, and most of his friendships ran through one or the other. His family remembers his kindness, his nerve and a sense of humor they describe as legendary.
He leaves Pamela; his son Richard and his wife Janna Kauss of Somerville; his daughter Amanda Blackmore and her husband Stephen of Hollis, New Hampshire; his grandchildren James, known as Sammy, Max and Emmeline; his brother Leonard and his wife Mary Ann and his sister Dixie Kulik and her husband Thad, all of The Villages, Florida; his brothers-in-law William Diamond and Thomas Diamond and Thomas’s wife Michelle; and nieces and nephews Nicole and Kara McLaughlin, Kim Garfield, Heather and Matthew Kulik, Jeremy and Jacob Hathorn and Michael and Matthew Diamond. His sister Jeanette McLaughlin and her husband Bruce, his sister-in-law Mary Garfield and his nephew Scott McLaughlin died before him.
Visiting hours are Friday, November 13 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Murphy Funeral Home, 85 Federal Street, Salem, and a memorial service follows there Saturday, November 14 at 11 a.m., with a reception afterward. The family suggests gifts to neuro-oncology research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund, P.O. Box 849168, Boston 02284, or to Plummer Youth Promise, 37 Winter Island Road, Salem. The funeral home can be reached at 978-744-0497.
Compiled from information published by Murphy Funeral Home. Photograph courtesy of the family via Murphy Funeral Home. This is our own summary, not the family’s obituary; read the full obituary and leave a condolence at the funeral home’s page on Legacy.com. Corrections: we will fix any error promptly.
