Jeh Vincent Johnson

Jeh Vincent Johnson passed away on January 27 at Vassar Brothers Hospital at the age of 89. Jeh is survived by his wife of 64 years, Norma Edelin Johnson, and his son Jeh Charles Johnson, the former Secretary of Homeland Security, and two grandchildren. His daughter Marguerite Johnson passed away in February 2020. Jeh was an active part of the Poughkeepsie community for 56 years. He was a pioneering black architect and lecturer in architecture at Vassar College for 34 years.

Jeh was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1931, to the prominent sociologist and president of Fisk University, Charles S. Johnson and his wife Marie. He was the youngest of four children. The name "Jeh", pronounced "Jay," was inspired by an African chief Jeh's father met on a League of Nations fact-finding mission to Liberia in 1930. Two of Jeh's older brothers were members of the famed Tuskegee Airman during World War II. Growing up, Jeh was considered a child prodigy, finishing first in his class in high school, he traveled north to attend Columbia College and Columbia School of Architecture. Jeh was valedictorian of his class in the School of Architecture. In between college and graduate school, Jeh was drafted in to the Army and assigned to the elite Army Counter Intelligence Corps. Following school Jeh practiced architecture in New York City for several years.

In 1963 Jeh and his family left New York City to join a school friend William Gindele in an architecture practice on Liberty Street in downtown Poughkeepsie. The family moved from Queens to Dutchess County, first to a home on Bower Road in Pleasant Valley and then to Cottom Hill. For decades the architecture firm Gindele & Johnson was responsible for the design of some of the area's most notable projects, ranging from the Poughkeepsie YMCA, the Poughkeepsie Day School, to the Main street mall complex built in the 1970s. At the same time, Jeh was active in the community as a member of the board of directors of Scenic Hudson and the Poughkeepsie Savings Bank and as a lecturer at Vassar. Many of his students at Vassar were themselves inspired by him to become architects. On the national level, in 1968 Jeh served on a presidential commission that studied urban housing, and was a founding member of the National Organization of Minority Architects.

Anyone who knew Jeh Johnson knew he loved to teach and he loved to talk. He had an amazing grasp of trivia that he would share with his students, children and grandchildren. He could at one point in his life recite the call letters of every 50,000-watt AM radio station east of the Mississippi, or the origin of the names "Sputyen Duyvil" or "bulldog." Fact-checkers were amazed to find his long exposes corroborated on Wikipedia, though he did not know how to consult the internet tool himself. Throughout his 89 years, spanning the Great Depression and life in the Jim Crow south, to the Oval office to see his son become a member of President Obama's cabinet, Jeh was always a gentlemen, and a great friend, husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle and mentor to all he touched. We are all smarter and richer for it.

Because of COVID, there will be no funeral in the Poughkeepsie area. Consistent with his wishes, Jeh will be buried alongside his parents and two brothers at the family cemetery in Nashville. Tributes and donations in honor of Jeh's life may be made to either Vassar College or Fisk University.