Deceased September 13, 2019
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In Memory
Jamison “Jay” Meredith died on Sept. 13. Although reportedly incapacitated for several years and unable to speak owing to a series of strokes, his mind remained clear, and he was able to communicate.
I recall Jay at Amherst as quiet, kind and personable, yet also as someone who usually kept to himself. Pat recalls him as unpretentious, his casually unworldly presence partly relieving the pressure we all felt in our disciplines.
Jay, a biology major, had a fine sense of humor but never laughed at his own jokes. Jay hailed from Fairmont, W.Va.; I had lived in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. As Alpha Delta Phi pledges, Jay, Pat and I shared in the initiation stunts that played off detectable idiosyncrasies. Jay, because of his West Virginian accent, was assigned to recite Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” on the steps of Converse and managed this with the best of grace, if not of elocution.
None of us saw or heard from Jay following graduation. In 2014, I reached out to encourage him to attend our 50th reunion and discovered he was living on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. His son Alec responded that while Jay could not attend, he appreciated hearing from a classmate. Since then, I had always intended to see Jay but regrettably had not. Then Alec’s email came with news of his father’s passing. At Jay’s funeral, I met Alec and his wife, Eliana.
Alec reported that, while Jay regularly read Amherst and often sat in his “black Amherst chair,” he “didn’t talk much of Amherst, and he never went back.” While “proud of his alma mater, it sounded like a real grind most of the time.”
For much of his career, Jay was a self-employed software developer for the construction industry.
It seems Jay lived his life, much of it, his way. We miss him.
Stan Durkee ’65, with Pat Murray ’65