He was born in Connecticut, the son and namesake of a World War 2 naval officer. A high school track star, Pathe attended Tufts University but his studies were interrupted. He took a summer job at a construction site and was seriously injured when he fell from a roof.
"He was, for a while, paralyzed, a quadriplegic,'' says Simone Pathe, his daughter and only child. Jim attributed his recovery to the work of nurses at Hartford Hospital.
Jim, who sailed for pleasure as well for military service,, also attended the Merchant Marine Academy.
He moved to New Jersey to attend Drew University in Madison, a town where he lived until his death. He also studied at the New School for Social Research. He spent a lot of time in New York and found friends from among members of the nascent anti-war movement in the early 1960s.
He became involved with the Veterans for Peace, the National Mobilization Committee and the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade, central forces in the movement. Pathe was a leader of the April 15, 1967 march to the United Nations building that drew worldwide attention because it provided an international forum for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to express his opposition to the war.
While living in New Jersey, he began reading local newspapers and found the work of Bill Gordon of The Newark News. Gordon, a Korean War veteran, was sent to Vietnam to cover the war. Gordon later moved to The Star-Ledger where he and Pathe met.
Pathe's activities with anti-war veterans led him directly to photography. He met Maury Colow, a member of the Veterans for Peace steering committee and a veteran, not only of World War 2 but also of the Spanish Civil War. Colow was a member of the anti-Fascist, anti-Franco, anti-Hitler Abraham Lincoln Bridge. Colow, a photographer, remarked that Pathe had a knack for noticing dramatic scenes occurring during peace marches. He asked Jim why he wasn't taking pictures.
"I'm not a photographer," Pathe said.
Colow even told him what sort of camera to buy—a Nikon. Pathe went to a camera store and found he could buy a Minolta for much less.
Maury Colow during the Spanish Civil War in 11937: He was Jim Pathe's friend and mentor–and the man who insisted he buy a Nikon. Abraham Lincoln Brigade photo.
It took time to save the money to buy the Nikon, but he did—and his career began, first as a free-lancer, then as a staff photographer for the The Record in Morristown and, finally, The Star-Ledger. Pathe had become a father and he was, as his friends and colleagues well knew, a doting, loving father. A single father for most of Simone's life.
Pathe and this writer both had daughters—daughters who pursued journalism. On assignments together, we always found ourselves sharing fatherhood stories, daughter stories, hopes—depending on the mood and the moment—that they would or would not follow us. Simone Pathe is now a reporter and writer for Roll Call, the Capitol Hill journal.
His colleagues at the paper remember Jim Pathe as a thoughtful, considerate man who was willing—and able—to talk about any subject, near or far from photography.
As a professional photojournalist, he was interested in subjects like architecture and cityscapes. He also enjoyed shooting theater productions like those produced by the New Jersey Shakespeare Theatre in his hometown of Madison.
In 2017, Jim Pathe spoke to me about that day—about wandering around the Hill Manor Apartments on Rev. Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark early on that cold December morning, trying to figure out where he should be. The streets were empty, evacuated. He said he couldn't get through to his office.
Suddenly, explosive charges went off in the corners of the 21-story building—Pathe could hear the blasts. Wispy plumes of smoke started to rise out of cracks in the buildings facade—he could see them. Then the massive project—containing 426 apartments—slid with a roar to the ground sending up and out a toxic plume of smoke and debris—and Pathe was in its path.
At the office, his colleagues tried to help him. One even found an eye doctor who would see him right away. That night, Simone—then just a sixth-grader—accompanied him to the emergency room.
In his conversations with me, Pathe blamed no one for what happened to him. He had taken a buyout in 2008—mostly so he could care for his father, then in his 90s. He mostly cared about whether he would have adequate health care, whether the costs of treating the cancer that was killing him would ruin him and his family.
He also worried about Simone. He always thought about Simone.
"She is quite a woman—a great journalist," he said—and not just once.
Simone says she will always remember him as a stubborn, strong-willed and vital man—from the time as a boy that he refused to kiss the ring of the Catholic bishop who confirmed him (Jim shook his hand instead) until the time he fiercely resisted entering a nursing home just days before he died.
But, she says, that won't be how she will remember her father, Jim Pathe.