James Carmer Nelson, Jr.
(11/10/21 – 1/13/15)
Former San Francisco advertising executive James C. (Jim) Nelson, Jr. passed away at home, January 13, 2015, at age 93.
Mr. Nelson, the son of a dairy salesman, was born and raised in Denver, Colorado during the Great Depression and earned a full academic scholarship to Yale University. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, his graduating class was accelerated to matriculate a year early, in 1942, in order to join the war effort. Mr. Nelson enlisted in the Navy and was stationed at Del Coronado Island in San Diego where he trained crewmen in anti-submarine warfare before they shipped out to the Pacific Theater.
After the war, Mr. Nelson returned to the East Coast and worked as Marketing Editor for Business Week Magazine in New York City. It was there in New York where he met his lifelong partner, Mary-Armour Ransom of Rye. The two were engaged within one month and married a year later in 1950.
After the birth of their first child, the Nelsons decided to seek their fortune in the San Francisco Bay Area. They moved to Sonoma, California where Mr. Nelson freelanced for magazines while he and his wife operated a mini-empire of gumball machines—an experience that inspired his first novel “The Trouble with Gumballs.”
In 1957, Mr. Nelson became a copywriter at the former San Francisco ad agency, Hoefer, Dietrich & Brown—which later became the largest independent ad agency west of the Mississippi. While at HD&B, Mr. Nelson served the majority of his tenure as Creative Director before rising to President and then Vice-Chair of the Board. A talented musician who composed well-known jingles for radio and television—as well as a nascent artist—Mr. Nelson’s office was always home to an upright piano and his paintings and mixed media pieces.
Mr. Nelson sat on several industry boards and was regularly invited to speak at advertising conferences due to his insightful and humorous perspectives. In 2012, Advertising Age Magazine hailed his 1967 short film, “2017 Revisited,” as prescient at foreseeing the digital media boom. In it, Mr. Nelson plays the role of U.S. Secretary of Advertising in the year 2095 looking back at an imagined 2017. (http://bit.ly/1CixjDA)
Mr. Nelson retired from full-time agency life in 1980, shortly after overseeing the merger of HD&B with Chiat Day SF. However, he did not retire from his creative endeavors. He continued to write articles for magazines and consult for Fortune 500 companies. He studied figure drawing and created a prolific series of pen and ink drawings that chronicled trips and life events he and his wife shared together. Mr. Nelson also wrote books on wine as well as penned several novels and a screenplay. His novel, “On the Volcano,” was published by Putnam and Sons when Mr. Nelson turned 89.
As secretary for his Yale Class Notes of 1943—and unbeknownst to anyone other than his wife—Mr. Nelson embarked on a 6-year adventure of ‘spiking’ the Notes with a fictitious classmate, Dave Henderson, and his egregiously selfish exploits. Mr. Nelson’s Henderson was so believable yet so outrageous that the Notes attracted the attention of, among others, SF Chronicle columnist, Herb Caen. Articles began appearing condemning Henderson and his tastelessness, and soon thereafter Mr. Nelson was removed as class secretary. Mr. Nelson subsequently killed off Mr. Henderson in a humorous Smithsonian Magazine article that recounted the entire incident.
Throughout his adult life, Mr. Nelson loved to travel the world, learning about different cultures and mastering a basic command of a country’s language prior to visiting. During the last 20 years of his life, Mr. Nelson’s travel slowed as he began to battle the effects of postpolio syndrome. Post-polio took away his tennis game but not his curiosity to try new things. When he could no longer walk, he developed a style of photography taken from a car or wheel chair—photography that won awards in judged competitions. When he became unable to type, he learned to use speech recognition software and wrote two novels.
By far the most important thing in Mr. Nelson’s life was his family and his wife, Mary-Armour. Their 65-year love affair was an inspiration to their children, their grandchildren, and friends. Mr. Nelson is survived by his wife, Mary-Armour, his children Jamie Nelson of San Rafael, Marshall and Marie-Louise (Nelson) Graves of Sacramento, Jeff and Sabrina Nelson of Los Angeles, Tom and Rebecca (Nelson) Sylla of Kentfield, as well as seven grandchildren—Jackson Masters, Randa, Nina and Willie Nelson, and Tyler, Eli and Cameron Sylla. A celebration of Mr. Nelson’s life will be held Sunday, February 15th, 1pm, at the Mill Valley Recreation Center, 180 Camino Alto.