Jim Workman’s theme song could well have been “Mi Casa, Su Casa.”
For decades he opened his Northwest home to his extended family, to friends and to people from up and down his block and from faraway continents. He welcomed guests for dinner, overnight, and sometimes even for months.
Eight years ago Cristiano Alves of Orlando, Fla., was losing his eyesight to diabetes and had lost his savings in the Enron financial collapse when encountered Mr. Workman in the Piedmont Hospital cafeteria.
“I happened to bump into him, literally, while trying to find a place to sit and eat my lunch,” Mr. Alves said. “I asked if I could share his table, and he very kindly said yes.”
The two of them had just visited their doctors, and when Mr. Workman learned of Mr. Alves’ plight, he immediately offered help.
“Here I was,” said Mr. Alves, “a stranger from Brazil with no money and no family to fall back on, and he let me stay at his house for six months. Not only that, he paid my health insurance premiums, which enabled me to get treatment to improve my vision. I feel like I owe Jim my life and my eyesight.”
Mr. Workman was just as welcoming with neighbors, hosting frequent dinner parties for them for decades.
Bill Edwards of Woodstock, a cousin, said dinners at the Workman home were Southern-style, hearty and well thought-out, often prepared by Alton Barnes, a grand longtime cook for Mr. Workman and his mother, Mary Workman, who died in 1994 at the age of 101.
“Jim liked to prepare and serve the dessert himself,” Mr. Edwards said. “To his guests’ great delight, Jim would swoop into the dining room carrying a magnificent English raspberry trifle, heavy in sherry and whipped cream and serve it to each guest.”
James Minor Workman Jr., 88, died Feb. 12 at Piedmont Hospital of complications of pancreatic cancer. His memorial service is 4 p.m. Saturday at the Peachtree Presbyterian Church’s Kellett Chapel, with a reception to follow. H.M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill, is in charge of arrangements.
Born in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Workman was raised in Winnsboro, S.C., and served in the Army Air Corps as a meteorologist during World War II. After earning a degree in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech, he worked for Rich’s Department Store and helped draft interior designs for its new store in Lenox Square Mall.
Afterward, Mr. Workman devoted the balance of his career to a local firm, Merchandising Equipment Inc.
“Jim was a very talented engineer,” said Lawton Grant of Fort Myers, Fla., MEI’s retired former president. “For 30 years he designed display cases that our company marketed to stores like Rich’s and Davison’s and later Macy’s and Sak’s Fifth Avenue in Atlanta, McRae’s in Mississippi., and Tiffany’s in Atlanta and Boston.”
Mr. Workman took a lot of pains with his designs, Mr. Grant recalled, making certain the lighting, materials and assembling all worked. “Jim was very exacting, very detail-oriented,” he said.
One of Mr. Workman’s former neighbors, Elizabeth Fisher, now living in Seattle, was impressed with his industriousness at home as well.
“How appropriate it was that his name was Workman,” she said. “The first time I ever saw him, he was on the roof of his house, when I believe he was in his 80s. Or we’d see him working on the sidewalk, using a sledge hammer a man 30 years younger could hardly lift.”
There are no immediate survivors.
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