Farewell Jay R. Sames

Jay R. Sames was a man of few words, boundless curiosity, and studied contemplation. A retired chemical engineer (and patent attorney), he found his way to Sutton from his home in Peacham, Vermont, to discuss travel with our Lynda Graham, then owner of the Vert Le Mont B&B. They met online and he had come to envy Lynda’s extensive worldwide travel. His own travel had been limited to work trips throughout the US.

We had the good fortune to live directly across from the B&B on Maple Street and came to look forward to the visits from the dude in the hat who could be seen reading for hours on the porch, while savouring a cigar. Then he would disappear back home to Vermont for a time. Eventually we would enjoy chatting about his passion for books, and then perhaps a beer, a dram of Lagavulin scotch, or dinner.

He was astonishingly well read, and in a truly profound way. Before he’d discovered Sutton, he’d formed a reading group in Vermont for which he lead the study, in English, of the seven volumes of Proust’s À larecherche du temps perdu. Here in Sutton, between travels, he tackled James Joyce’s Ulysses and all of the diaries of Samuel Pepys. He prepared his reading diligently and seldom read without the appropriate notes and reference books at hand. His memory was startlingly accurate.

But travel was the draw, and Vert Le Mont became the base. Together, he and Lynda wandered the world, couch surfing, riding local buses and trains, and relishing street food. Their destinations were as varied as Argentina, Georgia, and Albania. When he was here, Jay formed close friendships with Micheline and Daniel (with whom he and Lynda went to Greece and Mexico). For cigars and penetrating conversation, he was often found head-to-head with Peter Stastny, dissecting a challenging international dilemma.

He had many passions including writing for Le Tour, a capella singing, and cheering on Arsenal of the English Premier League. He faithfully proofread English copy for the Heritage Sutton series, and, for pure fun, did an ardent performance with Gussy Turner of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” for Star d’un soir.

Jay lived with a speech impediment all his life. Things changed when he was diagnosed with a progressive cognitive impairment. Eventually, discussion, his very lifeblood, became impossible. Faced with that increasingly bleak future, he decided take matters into his own hands. 

No one who knew Jay R. Sames will forget him. He was that rare person who one might properly call, a renaissance man.

Peter Turner