James Lafayette Wise, Jr., MD — September 17, 1936 to May 3, 2024
Jay Wise, of Charles City, Virginia, died early in the morning of May 3, 2024, at the age of 87.
He was born in New Orleans, educated as the only Baptist student at his Jesuit high school, and then went to Carson-Newman University in Tennessee, where he met his wife. He earned his medical degree from Louisiana State University and remained an LSU Tigers fan for the rest of his long life.
He became a board-certified pediatrician. Among his medical adventures: relief work in Haiti, service as a a lieutenant in the Navy, the position of Medical Examiner for Charles City County, practice as a family physician in Providence Forge, and several decades as the Chief of Emergency Medicine at (what was then) John Randolph Hospital in Hopewell, Virginia.
After retiring from medicine, he was a partner in starting the Well-Trained Mind Press, an educational publishing company in Charles City, and managed the administrative side of the business for over ten years. He also spent over thirty years supporting the work of his local church, Peace Hill Christian Fellowship. He helped to build the church’s timber-framed sanctuary, preached on occasion, served as an elder, gave generously, and sang all of the hymns and songs with the greatest of enthusiasm. (His occasional loud expressions of appreciation were known around the church as “Jaymens!”)
He loved classical music, Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, British murder mysteries, J. R. R. Tolkien, astronomy, fishing, hunting guns, bread-baking, cooking, smoked meats of all kinds, large unruly dogs, and whoever was playing against Clemson. He loved the food and culture of New Orleans and the adventure and landscape of Alaska. In his later years he returned to one of his first loves, watercolor painting, and produced scores of beautiful scenes of wildlife, flowers, and the farm.
He was husband for 62 years to Jessie; father to Bob, Susan, and Deborah; grandfather to Christopher, Ben, Dan, Emily, Brooke, Madison, Dot, Newton, and Linus; and great-grandfather to Siobhan.
His family will miss his generosity, his expansive optimism, his penchant for saying, “Oh, let’s try that, we can figure it out!”, and his loving support for generations of his family.
