Obituary for James Andrew Mitchell
JAMES ANDREW MITCHELL
June 30, 1926 – February 17, 2022
Hark now. hear the sailors cry.
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic.
--Van Morrison
Jim Mitchell began his life voyage on June 30th, 1926, in New Haven, Connecticut, where his father John McKinney Mitchell, a pediatrician, and his mother, Nora Janeway Mitchell, a nurse, were completing their medical training at Yale University. His formative years were spent in the Bryn Mawr and Rosemont area of Pennsylvania as well as on the family farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His active imagination and entrepreneurial spirit were evident early on. By age ten he had already built his first wooden boat! For the rest of his life, he kept on building things—houses, furniture, a successful business, and more boats.
Jim graduated from Radnor (PA) High School in 1943 and promptly joined the U.S. Army Air Force as an aviation cadet, receiving an honorable discharge in November, 1945. Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, he matriculated at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and graduated in 1948 with a degree in Engineering.
His first career was with Union Carbide Corporation in Charleston, West Virginia, and New York, where he focused on housing innovations. Next was an assignment from the United States Agency for International Development to advise the Korean government on how to establish and maintain a chemical industry. While living in Seoul he also found time to build his second wooden boat—a William Atkins schooner named “Hae Yong,” or “Sea Dragon” in English—which he sailed along the western coast of South Korea. When the assignment was complete, Jim had the boat shipped as deck cargo to Panama and then sailed her to New York. He joined Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a Senior Vice President in the International Division. His primary client, Transco Energy of Houston, Texas, sent him to the Middle East where he oversaw a number of energy projects, including a stint with General Muammar Qaddafi in Libya.
In 1973, after the Pan Am flight from Beirut to Boston was attacked by terrorists, Jim and his wife Lolly decided it was time to leave corporate life. They spent the next fifteen years transforming a potato farm in Little Compton, Rhode Island, into Sakonnet Vineyards, the premier vineyard and winery in New England.
To celebrate his 60th birthday, Jim decided to build his third wooden boat, a scow schooner named “Vintage,” built by Joel White at the Brooklin Boat Yard in Brooklin, Maine.
In 1989, Jim and Lolly arrived by boat (of course!) in Camden, Maine, and purchased Pleasant View Farm, their home for the next 25 years, before they moved to Spruce Head. Jim built two more wooden boats—a motor-sailer named “Kintore” and a sloop named “Elf.” Small enough to tow over the road but big enough to live aboard, “Elf” spent four spring seasons in the Bahamas. His last project was the restoration of a coastal cruiser named “Kismet” with help from Bruce Malone in Rockport, Maine.
In his so-called retirement, Jim also wrote six books: “A Family Log: Six Generations of Mitchell and Allied Families, 1714–1996”; a photographic essay of emotions in motion called “Body and Soul”; “Finding Their Own Voices,” profiling 35 women in Maine doing unconventional jobs, published by Down East; “Reopening Pandora’s Box: Women’s Influence in Myth and Reality”; and “Beyond the Cross—Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s life in France.”
Always ready for an adventure, Jim helped Lolly plan, organize and lead over 25 trips to centers of contemporary art both in this country and abroad. Lolly’s experience serving on the Board of Directors at both the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine, inspired these trips and also provided a built-in audience.
With a full moon in the sky on February 17th, 2022, Jim set sail at dawn for the last time. He leaves his wife Lloyd (better known as Lolly) Adams Mitchell of 49 years; his two daughters Elizabeth Mitchell London (David) of Underhill, Vermont, and Nora Janeway Mitchell (Emily Skoler) of Burlington, Vermont; his sister Eleanor Mitchell Wendin (Dan) of Davis, California; his two grand- daughters Elise London Smith (Mike) of Providence, R.I. and Hannah London Christiansen (Andrew) of Wllliston, Vermont, and three great grandchildren. Both his first wife, Frances Hartley Anderson, and his second, Emily Mudd Chapman, predeceased him.
A private celebration of his life will be held in the fall. If you wish to make a donation in memory of Jim, please direct it to Sussman House, 40 Anchor Drive, Rockport, Maine 04856, and when you think of him, just look up, send a message, and remember to live your life to the fullest.
June 30, 1926 – February 17, 2022
Hark now. hear the sailors cry.
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic.
--Van Morrison
Jim Mitchell began his life voyage on June 30th, 1926, in New Haven, Connecticut, where his father John McKinney Mitchell, a pediatrician, and his mother, Nora Janeway Mitchell, a nurse, were completing their medical training at Yale University. His formative years were spent in the Bryn Mawr and Rosemont area of Pennsylvania as well as on the family farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His active imagination and entrepreneurial spirit were evident early on. By age ten he had already built his first wooden boat! For the rest of his life, he kept on building things—houses, furniture, a successful business, and more boats.
Jim graduated from Radnor (PA) High School in 1943 and promptly joined the U.S. Army Air Force as an aviation cadet, receiving an honorable discharge in November, 1945. Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, he matriculated at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and graduated in 1948 with a degree in Engineering.
His first career was with Union Carbide Corporation in Charleston, West Virginia, and New York, where he focused on housing innovations. Next was an assignment from the United States Agency for International Development to advise the Korean government on how to establish and maintain a chemical industry. While living in Seoul he also found time to build his second wooden boat—a William Atkins schooner named “Hae Yong,” or “Sea Dragon” in English—which he sailed along the western coast of South Korea. When the assignment was complete, Jim had the boat shipped as deck cargo to Panama and then sailed her to New York. He joined Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a Senior Vice President in the International Division. His primary client, Transco Energy of Houston, Texas, sent him to the Middle East where he oversaw a number of energy projects, including a stint with General Muammar Qaddafi in Libya.
In 1973, after the Pan Am flight from Beirut to Boston was attacked by terrorists, Jim and his wife Lolly decided it was time to leave corporate life. They spent the next fifteen years transforming a potato farm in Little Compton, Rhode Island, into Sakonnet Vineyards, the premier vineyard and winery in New England.
To celebrate his 60th birthday, Jim decided to build his third wooden boat, a scow schooner named “Vintage,” built by Joel White at the Brooklin Boat Yard in Brooklin, Maine.
In 1989, Jim and Lolly arrived by boat (of course!) in Camden, Maine, and purchased Pleasant View Farm, their home for the next 25 years, before they moved to Spruce Head. Jim built two more wooden boats—a motor-sailer named “Kintore” and a sloop named “Elf.” Small enough to tow over the road but big enough to live aboard, “Elf” spent four spring seasons in the Bahamas. His last project was the restoration of a coastal cruiser named “Kismet” with help from Bruce Malone in Rockport, Maine.
In his so-called retirement, Jim also wrote six books: “A Family Log: Six Generations of Mitchell and Allied Families, 1714–1996”; a photographic essay of emotions in motion called “Body and Soul”; “Finding Their Own Voices,” profiling 35 women in Maine doing unconventional jobs, published by Down East; “Reopening Pandora’s Box: Women’s Influence in Myth and Reality”; and “Beyond the Cross—Jesus and Mary Magdalene’s life in France.”
Always ready for an adventure, Jim helped Lolly plan, organize and lead over 25 trips to centers of contemporary art both in this country and abroad. Lolly’s experience serving on the Board of Directors at both the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine, inspired these trips and also provided a built-in audience.
With a full moon in the sky on February 17th, 2022, Jim set sail at dawn for the last time. He leaves his wife Lloyd (better known as Lolly) Adams Mitchell of 49 years; his two daughters Elizabeth Mitchell London (David) of Underhill, Vermont, and Nora Janeway Mitchell (Emily Skoler) of Burlington, Vermont; his sister Eleanor Mitchell Wendin (Dan) of Davis, California; his two grand- daughters Elise London Smith (Mike) of Providence, R.I. and Hannah London Christiansen (Andrew) of Wllliston, Vermont, and three great grandchildren. Both his first wife, Frances Hartley Anderson, and his second, Emily Mudd Chapman, predeceased him.
A private celebration of his life will be held in the fall. If you wish to make a donation in memory of Jim, please direct it to Sussman House, 40 Anchor Drive, Rockport, Maine 04856, and when you think of him, just look up, send a message, and remember to live your life to the fullest.