James McNiece (Jim) Austin was born in 1924 in Chapleau, Ontario. He was the eldest of four (4) sons of Allan McNiece and Rita (Dickinson) Austin. He was married to Rosamond Mills (1924-1948) who died shortly after giving birth to their twin daughters Rosamond (1947-1997) and Elisabeth (1947-).
In 1939, Jim Austin went to Sudbury to learn to fly with the help of his uncles Chuck and Jack (Austin) who had started Austin Airways. From 1939 to 1942, he attended Trinity College School in Fort Hope, Ontario. In 1942 he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and served during WWII as Flight Engineer, RCAF Bomber Command, Squadron 429 (Bison). After his father’s sudden passing in 1946, he joined the family’s business, Austin Nicholson Lumber Company, and worked in the lumber industry until his retirement in 1988.
Founded by Jim Austin’s grandfather (James McNiece Austin (1866-1922)) in 1901, the Austin Nicholson Lumber Company of Chapleau, Ontario became a major actor in the forest industry and was, in the late 1910s, the largest supplier of ties in the British Commonwealth. The company had contracts with Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) and in 1916, for example, it signed a three-year contract to provide the CPR with 200,000 ties per year.
From 1946 until the sale of the family firm in 1956, Austin was in charge of many of the bush operations. After the sale of the firm to W.B. Plaunt and Sons of Sudbury, Jim Austin stayed with the company until joining Eddy Forest Products in Espanola. He was Assistant Woodyard Superintendent, and after managing Eddy’s Pineland operation in Nairn Centre, he moved to Timmins in 1976 for work. Four years later, in 1980, he returned to Nairn. When he retired in 1988 he was Special Assistant to the Manager of the Woods Operations Supervising Research and Development in Lumber Operations and Production and Control of Waste Products.
After his retirement Jim Austin moved to Sudbury and resided there until his death in November 2012.