Jimmie was born Ivan Wesley Dodd on March 28, 1910 in Cincinnati. His father was John Wesley Dodd, born in Ohio, who worked for a lithograph company at the time. His mother was Luella Thede, a stenographer, one of four sisters born to immigrants from Mecklenburg, in what is now Germany. His parents divorced while Jimmie was a small boy, and for several years he and his mother lived with her sisters, none of whom ever married. originalmmc
