Obituary of James Robert Carmack

James Robert Carmack, known to friends and family as ''Jim'', died in his sleep Monday May 14, at age 92. Jim was comforted by his family throughout a 2-day vigil, and his survived by wife Joni, daughters April McCourt of Eugene, Vikki Bailey of Boston, and sons, Loyd of Seattle and Robert of Sydney Australia, plus extended family. Jim always boasted about being born in Camas on the kitchen table, as his parents had a bucolic home and dairy, still standing, on the Old Evergreen Highway facing Lady island. His parents Robert and Daisy were early pioneers in Camas, both -- but independently -- arriving from Kentucky in the 1890s. His father initially set up a successful dry goods store in Camas, which later extended to insurance and real estate. His father was chairman of the Camas school board, and his name still presides on the Garfield Auditorium plaque. After his father's death in 1932, Jim reluctantly quit Whitman College to come back to Camas and help his mother and sister Beatrice run the family business. It prospered into Camas Realty, and operated as a successful business for nearly 50 years. His strong-willed mother Daisy was an early suffragette, and counted her leadership of the Camas Businesswomen's Club as her most important goal. Jim joined the navy during World War 2, fighting in the Pacific. Soon after his return from the war he met Missouri-beauty Joni Yount and married her in 1946, in his mother's ''agate home'', now the location of the new Camas Library on Fourth Avenue. Jim and Joni celebrated their 61st anniversary in January this year. Jim was active in Camas communal clubs, former secretary of the Republicans although he later renounced this, to favor Democrats or independents, was a Shriner, and ran for Camas mayor in the mid 1960s against successful candidate Tom Toolson. As a Camas landlord, Jim was the first to open his housing to affirmative action employees brought in by the then Crown Zellerbach mill. As a real estate contractor, he was the city's first to offer Camas affordable housing immediately after the war, initially in the former ''Carmack Division'' at the top of Garfield Street across from the former high school. Jim was an inveterate hunter and fisherman. Early pictures of him show kills of geese along the Columbia River, and in later life he hunted moose and elk in Canada with close Camas friends. A memorial service will be held later this summer and will be announced in a future edition. Inurnment was private at the Camas Cemetery. Straub?s Funeral Home & Columbia Cremation in Camas is in charge of the arrangements. To send condolences or to sign the online guest book visit www.straubsfuneralhome.com.