His last words were “I feel faint” as he keeled back from his first forkful of fish at the Outback Steakhouse in Wilmington, North Carolina. Most of us figure it was the perfect way from John Davenport (Toppy) Lindsay to leave this world by making a big stir in a bar/cafe. Given he was larger than life, he often had a similar impact when we was just being his regular self.
Toppy was left by his father and company founder Ralph H. Lindsay with a corporate shell and a 20 year reputation of being a leading grease wool house on Summer Street. Ralph’s big account, Barre Wool Combing, got sold and his health took a bad turn so he cashed in and moved to Florida.
The best asset Ralph left Toppy was a result of the trip Toppy took to Australia to work for one of the largest wool buying companies in Australia. He got trained to evaluate the fiber count, yield and color of any and all types of raw wool from the finest fleeces to oddball oddments. This skill is what got R.H. Lindsay out of the 1950’s and it was still a factor for our business when we expired suddenly in 1996 weeks after his 70th birthday.
January 10, 2026 marks what would have been Toppy’s 100th Birthday. Given R.H. Lindsay is celebrating its 90th birthday on January 20, 2026, we always had plenty to celebrate at the start of the year.
Starting with the spring of 1954, Toppy would load up whatever large sedan or station wagon he bought in trade the year before and head out west starting April 1st. The first 20 years of this exercise saw Toppy arrive after 24 hours straight from his sister Marcia’s family in Illinois to arrive on July 6th which happened to be the anniversary of Toppy’s marriage to Phyllis Schuyler.
His absence had a big effect on our domestic life growing up. Phil was quoted as asking, “when will dad go on a trip again, I’m tire of being good.” That’s before Phil learned to ask forgiveness not permission. We had a lot of fun in the office the years Phil was left in the office to manage the wave of wool that would head east during his trip.
Toppy never belonged to the Boston Wool Trade Association but he as a major proponent of the Boston Wool Trade Golf Club as he won the Cup 6 times. Summer Street in his day was where the woolies met and traded. There was a broker/dealer system where the brokers called on dealers and dealers called on the mills. Toppy was always respectful of that dichotomy when in Boston, but once he crossed the River (Charles River that is) he would wheel and deal with anyone he found a long his way. We would always be building a scouring lot along side of the rail car and truck loads we would organize all spring. Often these would get shipped to a few small mills in the mid-west that the Boston dealers didn’t bother to cover.
We broke down in the early 1970’s and came out as a more modern company when we began calling on the carpet yarn spinners housed in the Manayunk part of Philadelphia. There were four carpet yarn mills and we represented D.B. Holdsworth Ltd out of Bradford and they were one of the leading purveyors of British and Irish carpet wool. John D. Lindsay Jr. became our Philadelphia agent, which mostly consisted of playing golf at the Philadelphia Wool Trade Golf Group and shepherding visitors around from the series of mills that were within a square mile. John has his own story at R.H. Lindsay despite the fact he got ‘lucky’ and avoided a full time career in wool to make out in real estate in West Philadelphia blocks from UPenn where he got a Business degree from the Wharton School.
Toppy also managed our sale of carpet wool to Karastan Bigelow the largest modern carpet mill operation in the world. Holdsworth had a strong hold on the Irish Skin Wool that Karastan thought was a secret ingredient for their yarn. Karastan also bought New Zealand greasy second shear or fleece wool. That’s another facet of our history as during the 1980’s and 90’s R.H. Lindsay kept building market share in areas where it hadn’t competed for business. Toppy to his credit adjusted although he would still buy plenty of raw wool out west. The trips would get shorter and more intense as wool production started to suffer in the 1990’s and competition remained strong.
Perhaps the oddest skill Toppy had was that he was an awesome knitter. When times were really tough in the early 1970’s he actually knitted for a yarn company magazine for a while. He saved the money from knitting and when business picked up he used it to go on a golf trip to Europe. He also braided rugs and was quite good with needle point. He had great hands that revealed themselves putting on the golf course as well as all the great items he would produce with a pair of knitting needles.
So, Happy Birthday Toppy! We may also mark the day when Toppy made that fateful trip to the Outback Steakhouse which is later this year.