James “Jimmy” Waddell Gordon, Jr., 1911-1999James W. Gordon, Jr., lifelong resident of Bon Air died January 10, 1999. The son of James Waddell and Mary Gilmer Meade Gordon, he was born September 5, 1911.
A graduate of the McGuire School, Danville Military Institute, and magnum cum laude graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, Mr. Gordon received a master’s degree in modern languages from the University of Virginia. He taught in Southern France for a year before moving to Scotland to work in the U.S. Foreign Service. In 1940, he graduated from the T.C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond.
He was a partner in the law firm of Florance, Gordon and Brown, served on the Board of Trustees of Hampden-Sydney, and was awarded the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award for service by the College.
In the late 1940s, Mr. Gordon served on the County Board of Supervisors and from that time forward, he was widely considered the unofficial “mayor” of Bon Air. Mr. Gordon was an active member of the Fishing Bay Yacht Club where he enjoyed sailing Le Sabot, Passat, and the Ranger. Mr. Gordon was also an avid outdoorsman. With his boyhood friend, Rucker Ryland, he canoed all of the navigable portions of the rivers of Virginia before he was 30.
He took great pleasure in building lakes and planting thousands of loblolly, Scotch and white pines on his properties in Chesterfield and Amelia Counties.
Mr. Gordon supported many community organizations throughout his lifetime; he especially enjoyed his close association with the Virginia Historical Society, Union Theological Seminary, the Richmond Home for Ladies, Volunteers of America, and the Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He was a lifelong member of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church where he served as an elder, trustee, and Clerk of the Session.
He was survived by his wife of 63 years, Margaret Cleaver Gordon; his son, James W. Gordon, III, and his wife, Heidi of Nagoya, Japan; four daughters, Margaret G. Butler of Boulder, Colorado, Helen G. Rolfe and her husband, Shelley, and Anne G. Downing, all of Richmond, and Mary Meade G. Winn and her husband, Tom, of Roanoke; eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.