James Allison Farley

James “Jim” Allison Farley, devoted husband, father and friend to many, a lifelong fisherman and a brilliant businessman who grew one of Oregon’s most venerated nurseries from scratch in the Willamette Valley, died June 14. He was 75.

Jim passed away in a place he loved all his life, the Oregon Coast. He’d just reached his limit of razor clams moments before his passing, and was surrounded by childhood friends and his wife of 50 years, Bev.

Jim grew up in a home on Newton Place and attended Raleigh Hills Elementary School and Beaverton High School. But he gained many of the lessons in his teenaged life venturing in a panel truck to the Oregon Coast and surfing with best friend George “Tim” Pender, and others.

At just 17, on the banks of the Columbia River at Beacon Rock, he met the love of his life, Beverly Weis. A chance encounter brought them together at a function of the Portland Yacht Club to which both their parents belonged. Jim and Bev’s story is a lifetime partnership that produced a successful nursery business; but it is, above all, an enduring and unending love whose legacy continues through a family now three generations strong.

He and Bev chose to embark on a great adventure by moving to Hawaii after high school, attending courses at the University of Hawaii and surfing the shores of Oahu. Though he’d planned to study engineering, Jim was steered toward economics and management courses, even taking a course taught by a protege of Milton Friedman. All the while, the couple cleaned and cooked in a family’s home in Honolulu to earn room and board, with hardly a penny to their names.

Returning to Oregon, he worked odd jobs until an opportunity came through a family connection: budget director at Oregon Bulb Farms. There, he rose through the ranks in a transformative time for cross-breeding new varieties of lilies. He and Bev used hard-earned savings to start their own mail-order lily business out of their garage on 132nd, which led to the couple’s purchase of their first farm in Troutdale. They bought Fairdale Nursery in December 1979.

Rows of Rhododendron, grafted pines and Japanese Maples were the crops of a disciplined operation and growing staff. His ethos was one of quality over quantity, the reputation of its nursery stock reaching the landscapes of far flung corners of North America. “I was always honest and I always paid my bills,” he once said.

As their work and businesses grew, so did their family; the couple had three sons, Mark, Adam and Joshua. His parenting included a bevy of mantras that came to be known as “Jimisms,” and included expressions like, “You can do anything you want. You know why? Because this is America,” and “Time and tide wait for no man,” a quote he liked to purposefully misattribute to Bill Shakespeare in 1922.

Precious memories were forged on nursery sales trips to California in the family Suburban, listening to Blondie and other rock bands while driving the interstate through the Siskiyous.

Today the business, Countryside Nursery, continues to thrive, with son Adam at the helm.

Jim loved oceans, rivers and water, and boats of all kinds, from small craft to aircraft carriers. But of his life’s hobbies, fishing trumped all. From the day his father, Eugene D. Farley, showed him how to drop a worm on his fishing line on the Zigzag River near Mount Hood, Jim was himself hooked. As a boy, he would troll for trout in an eight-foot dinghy all day at his parents’ South Puget Sound cabin. He even took Bev fishing on prom night. Over time, he angled the rivers and oceans of the Earth, developing what many saw was an ability to commune with fish, from the windswept hills of Ushuaia on the tip of South America to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. “Lucky Jim” caught elusive Permit on the Yucatán, hefty halibut in Alaska, and of course, King Salmon in the mouth of the Columbia in his cherished Alumaweld Formula Vee.

He cared deeply for the species and the natural world. Of fish, he threw many more back than he ever kept; what he did net he often gave to friends and colleagues, wasting not an ounce.

In retirement, he pursued fishing and other passions, including restoring vintage cars. He and Bev would caravan with close friends in their 1932 Ford Coupe. He also honed his cooking skills in later life and always kept the bellies of his family and friends full with his scratch spaghetti, chili or short-order breakfasts.

An opinionated and patriotic American, he was above all a generous and compassionate man always quick to lend a hand to those in need.

Jim is survived by Bev, his wife of a half-century; three sons and daughters-in-law, Mark and Andrea, Adam and Jessica and Joshua and Rosemary; and his beloved six grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents, Eugene D. And Sarah Farley.

A celebration of life is planned for 2 p.m. July 6 at the Barn at Countryside, 15243 NE Countryside Drive, Aurora, Oregon. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the American Heart Association and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Our hearts are broken but buoyed by the spirit of this larger-than-life man, who forever made us better. We love you, Dad.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.finleysunsethills.com for the Farley family.