James Napier

James Napier, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, passed away peacefully on January 22, 2026, just shy of his 73rd birthday, after an 18 month battle with glioblastoma.

Jim was born in Peekskill, New York, the son of Clarence Napier and Alice Kelleher Napier. He graduated from Hendrick Hudson High School in the early 1970s and then embarked on a ten year tour of various academic institutions in upstate New York. After spending time at SUNY Oneonta, Cornell University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Rochester, Jim earned a doctorate in Chemistry. He would spend the rest of his life explaining, no, he was not that kind of doctor.

While in graduate school, Jim married Mary Zima at St. Barnabas the Apostle Church in Bellmore, New York. They met as undergraduates at SUNY Oneonta and were married for 48 years. Mary accompanied Jim on his tour of academic institutions and, settling in Rochester, New York, Jim and Mary eventually welcomed daughter Claire, son Andrew and daughter Brigette.

Jim would say he spent his working life as a lab rat, but his business card usually read “Senior Research Scientist”. He worked for Pennwalt Pharmaceuticals in Rochester, New York, and then for Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago, Illinois, finally retiring from Abbott’s spin off, AbbVie Pharmaceuticals. He enjoyed chemistry and enjoyed telling people he liked to make drugs.

After retirement, Jim and Mary moved to the Minneapolis area near to where all three of their children had migrated, though Jim would say he moved to Minnesota because northern Illinois was just not cold enough. Jim loved the outdoors and in retirement was a 10,000 step a day walker. He would often bring his camera along on his walks and enjoyed getting shots of birds and other wildlife along the way. Jim was also a true Jawa at heart. It gave him great joy to repurpose old technology and give it new life. Jim was neither athletic nor musical, but he had an encyclopedic knowledge of both sports and music of all kinds. He was an avid Buffalo Bills fan and a big fan of Neil Young. If you wanted to know how many recordings of “Cortez the Killer” Neil had, Jim was your man.

Jim was a member of various campus Catholic communities during his graduate student years. After an afternoon with Billy Graham at Silver Stadium in Rochester, New York, on September 11, 1988, he expanded his church options, eventually spending 32 years at Trinity Community Church in northern Illinois (a Vineyard Church for many of those years). He had been a member of the Church of the Open Door since moving to Minnesota and enjoyed Bible studies, men’s groups and a journaling group. Thanks to the encouragement of the journaling group, Jim had lots of good written conversations with Jesus during the last year and half of his life, filling over a half dozen notebooks.

Jim will be missed by many. Among those are his wife, Mary, daughter Claire McFall and husband George, their daughters, Jim’s precious granddaughters, Autumn and Amelia, son Andrew Napier, daughter Brigette Gay and her husband Michael. He will also be missed by his sister, Nancy Napier, his niece Kelly Napier, brother David Napier and his wife Karen, nephew Brian Napier and nieces Hayley and Kayla Napier, his brother-in-law Frank Zima and his wife Debbie, and niece Jessica Weiss and nephew Ben Zima. Preceding Jim in death are his parents, Clarence and Alice Napier and his sister Jean Napier.

A celebration of Jim’s life will be held at the Church of the Open Door, 9060 Zanzibar Lane N, Maple Grove, MN 55311 on Friday April 10 at 11 am.

Jim enjoyed packing meals at Feed My Starving Children in both Illinois and Minnesota. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in his name to FMSC at https://www.fmsc.org.