James “Jim” Avery Plummer died at home in Montpelier, Vt., with his wife and daughters by his side, on July 31, 2023. Jim lived a long and adventurous life, and he leaves behind many who will remember him fondly and miss him dearly.
He was born in Wilmington, Del., to Dorothy Lawrence and Richard Wentworth Plummer, and soon after, the family moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jim grew up being bilingual in Spanish and English, attending local public schools and fishing in nearby rivers with his older brother, Frank. From the beginning, he was immersed in an artistic expatriate community, with performances in the family home by touring concert musicians from Europe and cocktail parties where he learned to mix drinks earlier than most. Jim began training as a classical violinist during this time and was a gifted performer from an early age.
In 1944-45, the family left Argentina, and during a year living in New York City and Washington, D.C., Jim sang in the National Cathedral Choir, an experience of which he remained proud of throughout his life. By age 11, Jim’s family had relocated to Mexico City, Mexico, which would become his home base for the next 20 years. In the 1950s, he followed Frank to Vermont Academy and Yale, where he studied East Asian history, lettered in fencing and began his lifelong practice of the guitar.
In 1956, Jim married Myriam Bannister (now Leary), and their son, Christopher Roland Plummer, was born in 1959. They later divorced. Jim worked selling advertising in Mexico and Colombia and then moved to Connecticut, where he began his decades-long teaching career and became increasingly interested in and committed to anti-oppressive and anti-colonialist political thought and action.
In 1966, he met the love of his life, Juliana Thacher, and they married in 1967 while living in East Harlem in New York City, where they were active in the Civil Rights Movement. Jim taught at Manhattan Country School in the city and later ran its farm program in the Catskills. His students from those years still kept in touch through his last months of life. They often fondly remembered him singing them to sleep at the MCS Farm, while accompanying himself on guitar and drawing from his repertoire of hundreds of folk and traditional songs in multiple languages.
Jim and Juliana raised two daughters, Katherine and Rebecca, and Jim was a fiercely proud and devoted father and husband. Although his personal tastes ran to symphonies and opera, he wouldn’t hesitate to join his daughters for Saturday morning cartoons and was game to hear the latest pop music hit, even if he was mystified by its success.
Homesteading and self-sufficiency were central interests, and he learned from “do-it-yourself” books published in the ’60s and ’70s how to do everything from driving workhorses to harvesting hay and gathering maple sap in the Catskills, to building homes for his family that were solid and warm, just like him. He built a log cabin in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1970, in which the family lived for two years, and then built another, larger one in Abbot Village, Maine, where he faithfully kept the woodstoves burning and the long driveway plowed, while working in the ’70s and ’80s as a performing folk singer and classical guitarist. In 1984, he went to work as a high school Spanish teacher at Bangor High School, from where he retired after 12 years. Jim and Juliana continued to live in the house in the woods for 37 years — long after the kids had left the nest — and tended a giant vegetable garden that was so productive that he gave away coolers of produce throughout the season.
After official retirement, Jim continued working in Maine, as a one-on-one companion for a boy with emotional and learning difficulties. He and Juliana traveled extensively to national parks, especially in the Southwest, and in 1998, they stayed eight months in Albuquerque, N.M., where Juliana studied massage therapy, and Jim supported them through his music. Back in Maine, Jim hiked Mount Katahdin three times and led a one-person picket for abortion rights in Bangor on a weekly basis, writing op-eds in the “Bangor Daily News” that helped make his point. At the age of 75, after beating Stage 3 colon cancer solely through alternative medicine — he swore by a Japanese reishi mushroom extract, in particular — he biked solo from Barcelona, Spain, to Greece and met up with Juliana in Cinque Terre on her birthday for a romantic weekend before he hit the road again.
In 2011, Jim and Juliana moved to Montpelier, Vt., to be near their daughters and grandchildren. Jim was the primary childcare provider for his grandson Nico in his infant through preschool years, and they shared a special bond, speaking Spanish and visiting the fire department and library every day. They could often be seen zipping around Montpelier, toddler Nico on his balance bike and octogenarian Jim on his scooter. Jim loved remote canoe camping, and he and Juliana were often accompanied on camping trips to Lake Mooselookmeguntic in western Maine by his brother, Frank, and later by their daughter Kate and her friend Jay Ekis. He was his grandchildren’s biggest fan and never tired of reading to them, hugging them or cheering them on at nearly every game they played.
In his final year of life, Jim became ill with multiple myeloma and after deciding against treatment, he spent his last four months at home receiving hospice care. He was comfortable, engaged, curious and argumentative right up to his last moments, read dozens of books on his Kindle and enthusiastically watched some Women’s World Cup games in his last days. Twice this spring he brought his friends from Montpelier’s Spanish-speaking community together at his bedside for singing and celebration. He still gave the best, most comforting hugs. Though he had lost much of his independence, he gracefully and gratefully accepted the carehis family and his hospice nurses and caregivers.
Jim was so appreciative of Vermont’s Death with Dignity law (Act 39) that allowed him to end his life as he lived it, with thoughtfulness and determination. As his postscript, Jim chose to participate in the Anatomical Gift Program of the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine. The care and support provided by Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice has been immeasurable, and our family especially thanks Jessica RN and Becca LNA for their weekly visits and gentle care.
Jim leaves behind his wife and soul mate, Juliana Plummer; his daughters, Kate (Katie) Plummer and Rebecca Plummer; son, Christopher Plummer; son-in-law, Andrew Tripp; and grandchildren, Thyme Plummer-Krause, Zoe and Nico Plummer-Tripp, and Julia Plummer. He will always be in our hearts.
A remembrance will be planned at a future date. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice or join a picket line, and please sing songs together.
This article appears in The Animal Issue 2023.