Mrs. Joan Farmer with a sleepy baby Bill. Photo furnished
Jean Farmer, the longtime matriarch of the Euclid Avenue business Farmer’s Jewelry, passed away on Jan. 27 at the age of 92. An alumna of Henry Clay High School and Asbury College, Jean is remembered by many as a stalwart of the Chevy Chase community, having been the driving force behind her family-run business for more than 60 years.
Jean’s late husband, Bill Farmer Sr., opened Farmer’s Jewelry in 1950. Their lives converged when Jean, who was working at the downtown jewelry store Villeminot’s at the time, came in to browse for some jewelry one day in 1955.
As she told it, she came in to buy a charm to wear to a birthday party, and Bill asked her if she’d come in and work with him during the Christmas shopping season.
The pair soon found they were a perfect match, both in business and in love.
Jean and Bill married in 1957 and ran the store together for more than 30 years, until Bill’s death in 1989. Jean stayed at the helm until her final days, running the store alongside her two children, Bill Farmer Jr. and Kristi Farmer Lykins, both certified gemologists who literally grew up among the jewelry display cases.
In a conversation late last year, Jean reminisced on the ways her children pitched in with the store when they were young.
“Billy used to sweep the floors every day after school,” she said.
“And I was the gopher,” Kristi added. “I’d head over to Wheeler’s on my bike to get everyone’s lunch, or around the corner to a place called Top Drawer Office Supplies, where Dad would send me with a list of things to buy.”
Farmer’s has remained in its same location from its beginnings, though it expanded its footprint dramatically in the early 1980s, when the family bought a neighboring property formerly occupied by a diving supply shop.
While lots of nearby businesses changed hands in the decades since Farmer’s founding, Jean — a grandmother of three whose memory and sense of humor remained sharp as a tack through the end of her life — remembered them all.
“When I started working here, I moved across the street where Charlie Brown’s is. Upstairs there used to be apartments,” recounted Jean. “Morris’ Liquor Store was on the corner, and then Abbott’s Barbershop. And Oram’s was around the corner. And there was a hardware store, and a dress shop, and a menswear store and a filling station. The whole block has come and gone.”
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Mrs. Farmer at Farmer's Jewelry located in Chevy Chase. Photo furnished
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Mrs. Farmer at Farmer's Jewelry located in Chevy Chase. Photo furnished
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Mrs. Farmer at Farmer's Jewelry located in Chevy Chase. Photo furnished
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Mrs. Farmer at Farmer's Jewelry located in Chevy Chase. Photo furnished
Over the years, she struck up close friendships with many Farmer’s customers, some of whom would stop in often just to talk with her, even if they didn’t need to shop for jewelry that day.
“My husband would tell me, ‘You need a couch,’” she joked, poking fun at her own knack for putting people at ease, much like a therapist would. “People would come in wanting to talk, so we talked.”
After Bill Sr.’s passing, Jean didn’t even consider closing the store. “I figured it was his, and he wanted it to go [on], and I wanted it to go on, and so did the kids, and I wanted to honor that,” she said.
Until she broke her hip after a fall roughly a year before her passing, Jean still came into the shop nearly six days a week — for many years walking the distance from her home on Chinoe to the Euclid Avenue storefront. Even in the days when she was no longer able to come into the store as often, when she was there, she still tended to call the shots.
“She’d call me on her cell phone from her office in back and say, ‘Billy, you’re needed out front,” said Bill, with a laugh. “She adapted to the modern ways of doing things.”
Over the years, Farmer’s Jewelry has adjusted as fads have come and gone. “There for a while the hot item was turquoise jewelry, and then for a time we sold scads of add-a-beads,” Bill recalled.
But one constant throughout the decades has been the family’s commitment to helping their customers revel in life’s happy moments — whether they’re coming in to shop for an engagement ring, a baby’s christening gift or an anniversary present.
“Dad always used to say he felt lucky to be in an industry that enabled him to celebrate with people,” Kristi said.
Jean echoed that sentiment, noting that helping mothers and sons shop for engagement rings remained one of the most special and treasured aspects of her job, even “after all this time in business.”
Former Lexington Mayor Jim Gray was a fan of Jean’s, presenting her with a citywide proclamation to celebrate her 90th birthday in 2017, and a plaque several years prior that named her a Henry Clay Ambassador “in recognition of her many contributions to the city and her family” and for building Farmer’s Jewelry into “a remarkable local business treasure,” according to the award.
“Mrs. Farmer is the kind of person that I, as a woman, really look up to,” said Sally Hamilton, the chief administrative officer for Lexington, who got to know Jean through her work with Bill Farmer Jr. in his role as a city council member.
“She [was] the type of person that proves that a positive attitude and a delight in getting up in the morning with a purpose make all the difference in the world,” Hamilton said.
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Mrs. Farmer, and son Bill, enjoying happy hour together. Photo furnished
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Fifth District Councilmember Bill Farmer pictured here with his mother, Jean Farmer. Photo furnished
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Mrs. Farmer behind her office desk at Farmer's Jewelry in Chevy Chase. Photo furnished