James A. Gilmer

James Allison Gilmer was born December 16th, 1941 to Merritt Gilmer and Lois McCord Gilmer in Portland, OR. He passed away on December 17th, 2017, one day after his 76th birthday in Hillsboro, OR after a long battle with the side effects of cancer treatment.

He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Kimberley Martin Gilmer of Hillsboro, 4 children: Benjamin Gilmer of Portland, Alyson "Alx" Parra, also of Portland, Johnny Van Le of San Diego, CA and Rhonda Rann Rosander of Vancouver, WA. He was the proud grandfather of 6 grandchildren: Naresa Walden of Nicholasville, KY, Patrick, Preston and Sabrina Duch of Beaverton and Daniel and David Parra of Portland. Jim is also survived by his sister, Linda Pacheco of Portland and his brother Richard Gilmer of San Isidro, Costa Rica.

Jim was a devoted family man and a wonderful role model for his kids. Most of all he was a lover of Jesus. He appeared to be a quiet man, but the older he got, and the sicker he got, he became much more outspoken for the Lord. He knew time was getting short, and like our God, he didn't want anyone left behind.

In Jim's early days, he played polo at the Lake Oswego Hunt Club. He started his love of the game when he was about 10. He and his sister were known as "Hot Walkers". They led the hot, tired polo ponies around until they had cooled down enough to be in their trailers or stalls. Later when Jim was older, he started training "green ponies" for people who had the money for the very expensive game but not the time to keep their horses ready. Jim didn't have the money, but he did have the time. He also had an amazing natural talent for this beautiful sport. The businessmen he worked for put him through college so that he could train and play their horses. Jim Gilmer was nationally ranked in the US Polo Association as a 2 goal player. In 1965, after graduating from Portland State with a degree in Engineering, he went back to the Washington DC area to play polo full time for a year. He was asked to stay on, but he said he'd worked too hard for that degree to not be a civil engineer.

Jim was a natural horseman, but he also was a gifted engineer. His specialty was pump stations for water and sewer. Jim had an intense love of travel and his job took him to some interesting and exotic places: the jungles of Peru, locations in Venezuela, Japan and Sweden and once to an island in Alaska that could only be reached by bush plane. While he was in these places, if he wasn't working, he was visiting everything he had researched on that country. He saw the A-Bomb Dome at Hiroshima, the ruins at Machu Pichu and most of the beautiful glass works in Stockholm.

Jim was always happy if a trip was in the planning stages. He was very proud of his Scottish heritage, so it was off to Edinborough to find the family castle, a cruise through Greek Islands, ice bergs in Alaska and manatee in Belize. When he was no longer able to go by plane, he happily switched to train travel which he always preferred anyway.

Jim Gilmer loved and was loved by kids of any age. He was a volunteer tutor in math at Abernethy Elementary School in Portland for many years when he worked downtown. When he retired, he just changed schools and tutored math at Glencoe High.

He served in the nursery and youth groups at Evergreen Christian Center. He always went on the annual youth group back pack trip, both as a trip planner and group leader. When he and his wife, Kim moved to Beaverton Foursquare Church about 25 years ago, he joined the ushers group and served there until 2013 when he became too ill.

Jim, Dad, Grandpa, Uncle Jimmie all were names he treasured. God gave him enough time to be able to tell everyone near him how much he loved them.

If he didn't get to you to tell you he loved you, just know that he did.

He just ran out of time.

"Jim Gilmer's Celebration of a Life Well Lived" will be held on Thursday, January 18th at Beaverton Foursquare Church, 13565 SW Walker Rd., Beaverton, OR 97005.