So long to the "Mayor of Lavender"
Every once in a long while, you meet a truly original character. Jamie Adam, the self-proclaimed Mayor of Lavender who passed away last Saturday after a tragic accident involving one of his beloved antique tractors, was one, without a doubt.
Adam left his native Isle of Man in the mid-1960s, in his 20s, after the young woman to whom he’d been engaged left him for another man. That incident led him to swear off women – according to his longtime friend Neil Metheral, Adam concluded that “they’ll do you no good” – and he lived the rest of his days as a bachelor, sustaining himself instead with history books and the pleasure of putting in a good day’s work.
Adam was a cheesemaker by training, but when he arrived in Canada after a trip across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary, he found it hard to get work in that field. He gravitated to agricultural work, first on a chicken farm outside Toronto and eventually on a sheep farm in Bond Head, where he first met Neil Metheral.
He eventually travelled to this area with a friend from back home, Jim Lindsay, and the two men started running a fledgling lamb operation near Lavender. When that venture didn’t fly, Adam built a snowblower out of an old army truck. He spent the winters blowing snow and the harvest season swathing hay and grain. He spent many years working for the Metherals and put in a fair amount of time for the Giffens in Glen Huron as well.
“Anybody that needed him, he was there to help you,” said Metheral.
In 1972, Adam bought his house on the Lavender corner, and soon became a fixture in that community. His raised voice and hearty laugh could be heard far and wide, and he spent his downtime tinkering with old David Brown tractors and reading history books in his library.
“He was quite a man to read,” remembered Metheral. “He could set you straight about a lot of things – wars, politics, anything to do with history.”
Adam was also devoted to his community. He was an avid supporter of the Dunedin Hall, he sat on the last Nottawasaga Township Council and the first Clearview Township Council, and he was a longtime volunteer with the Collingwood Fair Board. He was happiest on Education Day at the fair, when waves of Grade 3 and 7 students would pass through the tractor exhibit and listen to a yarn or two about the old times.
His passion for tractors led him to create one of this area’s marquee events. Every July for the past six years, antique tractor enthusiasts from all over southern Ontario have gathered at the Dunedin Park, setting out on a day-long trek around the back roads and over the far flung fields of Clearview Township. Adam was always at the front of the line, in his element, with a cigarette between his lips and a wide smile on his face.
“He had a real love for the old tractors, and in the end that’s what ended up gettin’ him,” said Metheral.
Last Friday afternoon, Adam was charging up one of his David Browns on the threshing floor of his little bank barn in Lavender. When he stood beside the machine to start it up, the tractor happened to be in gear. It lurched forward, taking Adam with it as it fell through to the ground floor. When a passing driver noticed him lying there and called Audrey and Harold Davidson, Adam’s longtime neighbours, over to investigate, Adam’s only request was for Audrey to retrieve his cigarettes and fetch him some matches. A lifelong smoker, Adam used to laughingly respond to people urging him to quit by asking,“How else do you expect me to get a rest?”
After a final smoke, an ambulance took Adam to the General & Marine Hospital. He was later taken to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, where he passed away on Saturday night. He was 75, and had no family in Canada.
Adam’s ashes are to be taken back to the Isle of Man, where they will be scattered on Snaefell Mountain, home of the International Isle of Man TT motorcycle race, an event Adam was fond of spinning tales about. A local celebration of his life will correspond with this year’s Tractor Rally on Saturday, July 20.
“We’re going to start out in Dunedin and dribble our way towards the Fairgrounds,” said Metheral. “When we get there we’re going to all enjoy each other for a while, and have a little memorial. Jamie would have wanted us to have fun, so that’s what we’ll do.”
