James Marion Hatch was born in Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas, on Thursday, 25 February 1875. His father, James Christopher Hatch was 43, and his mother, Frances Priour, was 22. The couple had 14 children: 8 boys, and 6 girls. James spent his childhood and youth in and around Nueces County, Texas.
He married Eunice Lindley of Ingleside on 07 August 1900. A daughter, Marie Myrtle Eunice Hatch was born on 17 August 1901, in Corpus Christi. His 1st wife, Eunice, was murdered on 21 April 1902. He subsequently moved to Beeville, Bee County, Texas, in 1905, and started farming. Three years later, James married Emma Emaline Williams on 25 February 1908, in Beeville, Texas.
James and Emma raised Emma's nephew, Jesse Lee Brundrett, after his parents died during the Flu epidemic of 1919. Soon after, 3 children were born, son's James Byron and John Kenneth, and daughter, Anna Francis, all in the Hatch home on Wofford Lane, just east of Beeville.
James loved the land with passion and was one of the first farmers in Bee County to practice soil conservation and the rotation of crops. He tilled the land, raised corn, cotton, small grain and broom corn, and raised livestock and poultry as well.
Gifted with a keen sense of humor, it was rumored that he told a friend that he came to Beeville from Corpus Christi 50 years ago in an effort to get away from the noise, and purchased a farm in the Wofford community, off the beaten path, so that he would not be bothered with traffic. “Recently, they have improved that road so much that traffic is directed right by my place, and as a result I have little privacy,” he said in a joking mood.
Another story of note was the time he was instructing his children and grandchildren the safe and proper way to detonate fireworks. During the demonstration, however, some fireworks inadvertently exploded in his hand and burned it badly. He never blinked an eye and continued the demonstration as if nothing had happened, although it was obvious that he was in pain. The demonstration, it turns out, was a lesson in stoicism, rather than of safety.
James was life-long member of the Catholic church, and passed away on Friday, 12 August 1955 @ 4:30 P.M. in a local Beeville hospital at the age of 80, and is buried in the Glenwood Cemetery in Beeville (Block 0103, 2nd Edition, Lot #2).