Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Raymond A. Jamieson, QC

Mr. Jamieson hated his middle name, Algernon. He was most often referred to as R. A. Jamieson (the gold lettered inscription which appears on the Goldie & McCulloch Co. Limited safe I inherited from his practice).

He apparently liked to drink, even to the point of draining the dregs of liquor from his visitors’ highballs the morning after the night before at his remote Clayton cottage. He smoked cigarettes, too, and probably cigars at one time (though I never saw him). He was athletic as a youth at Hart House, University of Toronto, where I understand he excelled in the long-distance races (something which doesn't surprise me, considering he was called to the Bar in 1921, retired at 82 in 1976, outlived his clean-living wife, Evelyn, and died at 96 years of age after a brief 6-month illness in the Rosamond wing of the Almonte General Hospital).

When I visited him at the Hospital in his final days, he asked me about John Kerry's renovations of the funeral home on Elgin Street. When I told him the renovations were coming along fine and the place looked wonderful, he replied, "I'm looking forward to going there!" And he did!

No comments:

Post a Comment