Back to the Farm
Readers of the Richmond Times-Dispatch got a treat on Independence Day in the form of a story about Washington and Lee alumnus James A. Tyler Jr., of the Class of 1967.
Jim is the great-grandson of President John Tyler. But he didn’t make his mark in politics. As T-D reporter Carol Hazard wrote, he worked for 42 years and 11 months at Scott & Stringfellow, the Richmond-based brokerage and investment banking firm. The firm’s chairman, S. Buford Scott, said that Jim was the longest-serving syndicate manager of any investment firm in the U.S.
But now he’s retired from that high-stress world and is working on his Charles City County farm full-time. The T-D’s story quotes Jim as saying: “I am Charles City born and bred and when I die, I will be Charles City dead.”
He grows wheat, soybeans, corn and hay for his Angus cattle and drives a 1928 Model A to church. It’s a fascinating portrait and worth the read: A farmer at heart leaves a job in the city.
