John Young LeBourgeois

John Young LeBourgeois obituary, Chicago, IL

John Young LeBourgeois

John LeBourgeois Obituary

Published by Legacy Remembers on Jun. 12, 2024.
John Young LeBourgeois, 85, died peacefully at home in Chicago on April 11, 2024 surrounded by his family. He had been in hospice care for eighteen months for metastatic cancer, but pneumonia was the cause of death.

John had an eclectic career in both academia and finance. He was a scholar, writer, banker, university administrator, lifelong competitive swimmer, painter of whimsical images, and a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. He wrote two books, Art and Forbidden Fruit: Hidden Passion in the Life of William Morris and The Blows of Yesteryear: An American Saga, co-authored with his nephew Ashton LeBourgeois.

John was born in New Orleans on April 25, 1938, the second child of Joseph (Jake) Charless LeBourgeois III and Astrid Synnove Johannessen. He grew up in New Orleans and in Metairie, Louisiana. John's parents divorced when he was four years old and he and his older brother, Charless, spent much of their childhood shuttling between the households of their parents and grandparents. John had a lifelong affection for his grandmothers, Katherine Powell LeBourgeois and Betty Johannessen, who provided him warmth and constancy during the upheavals of his childhood. As a child, he longed for a stable family. Of all of his accomplishments as an adult, he was most proud of his role of loving husband and father, raising his two daughters within an intact family.

John attended the Gulf Coast Military Academy, New Orleans public schools, and Metairie Park Country Day School. In 10th grade, he transferred to The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1956. John graduated from Yale University with a degree in English in 1960. Upon graduation, he worked for E.F. Hutton as a stockbroker, first in New York, then in New Orleans.

On Labor Day 1961, he met Myrthé (Mimi) Taylor Hero on a blind date at the Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans. After a short courtship, they married on April 2, 1962. Though John and Mimi had a typical marriage of the era in which he worked and she managed the home, they each saw the other as their friend, partner, and equal, with each spouse's ideas and opinions as important as the other's. They were happily married for 62 years and 9 days when he died.

In 1965, John was accepted into the Ph.D. program in History at Tulane University. In February 1969, he moved his young family to Oxford, England for a year and a half to research his dissertation on William Morris, the 19th century English designer, writer, and socialist. John graduated from Tulane with his Ph.D. in 1971.

In the fall of 1970, John joined the faculty of the History Department at Clemson University, where he earned tenure as an Associate Professor in 1977. In 1978-79, he received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to conduct research at the University of Chicago. During that academic year, LeBourgeois looked for opportunities to stay in Chicago. He applied to and was accepted into the M.B.A. program at the University of Chicago. Concurrently, he worked as an administrator at the Graduate School of Business (now Booth School of Business), first as the Assistant Director of the Evening M.B.A. program, then as Director of the Placement Office. He graduated with his M.B.A. in 1981.

From 1983 to 1988, John worked at First National Bank of Chicago, Ponder and Company, and the Bank of Delaware.

In 1988, he returned to academia as the Associate Dean of the Fox School of Business at Temple University. He remained at Temple University until his retirement in 2005.

John thrived as a university administrator. He savored the intellectual stimulation of academia, and he had a gift for listening to, connecting with, and supporting the people around him. He was instinctively attuned to his social environment, and he enjoyed implementing systems to help everything run smoothly. He loved working with young adults and was proud to work at a university in which a significant percentage of the student body were first generation college students. At Temple, he also returned to teaching one undergraduate course a semester, teaching both Humanities and Business courses.

John also worked at Temple University Japan (TUJ) in Tokyo, twice, for a total of seven years (1992-95 and 1999-2002). In those years, he served as Dean of TUJ and as Director of TUJ's Executive M.B.A. Program. John and Mimi loved their years living and working in Tokyo. They used their weekends and vacations to explore Japan and travel extensively throughout Asia.

After his retirement, John committed himself to racial justice, participating in events at the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation in St. Louis and at Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. John had family ties to both organizations. He was a historian by profession and in his final two decades he engaged with history as a living entity in his life.

John was a direct descendant of Peter Blow who was Dred Scott's earliest known enslaver. When Dred Scott was about 30 years old, the Blow family sold him to Dr. John Emerson. After the disastrous 1857 United States Supreme Court decision Scott vs. Sandford, through a series of events that defy credulity, the Sanford family defendants agreed to transfer their ownership of Dred Scott and his family to Peter Blow's son Taylor Blow, who then manumitted them. Thus, Dred and Harriet Scott, along with their two daughters Eliza and Lizzie, gained their freedom from slavery two months after they lost their lawsuit for freedom in the United States Supreme Court.

In 2013, several members of the LeBourgeois family met Lynne Jackson, Dred and Harriet Scott's great-great granddaughter and the founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. In subsequent years, John participated in several events organized by The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. He also developed a close friendship with Lynne Jackson. It was a relationship they both cherished, as two people in the present day, and as members of families with a historic connection.

John was also a descendant of Ambrose Heidel (later spelled Haydel) whose 1752 purchase of land in Louisiana became a sugar plantation known as Habitation Heidel. In 2014, this plantation opened to the public as Whitney Plantation. Its mission is to "educate the public about the history and legacies of slavery in the United States."

Through his involvement with Whitney, John befriended Curtis Graves (August 26, 1938 - July 26, 2023), a former member of the Texas House of Representatives, a civil rights activist, and a board member of Whitney Planation. Curtis was also a descendant of Ambrose Heidel, through Ambrose's grandson Antoine Haydel and a teenager named Anna who was enslaved by the Haydel family.

John and Curtis were sixth cousins born in New Orleans four months apart. They met in the final decade of their lives and found in each other a kindred spirit, delighting in each other's sense of humor. In 2016, John and Curtis gave a public talk at the International Women's Associates in Chicago about their parallel lives as Black and White boys growing up in New Orleans in the 1940s and 50s. John was heartbroken when Curtis died from a sudden illness in 2023.

John said that when he was a child growing up in the Jim Crow South, the racial segregation was so extreme that he rarely ever saw Black children, only Black adults who worked in homes, schools, and businesses. His friendships with Lynne Jackson and Curtis Graves were profoundly healing connections for John, and they were also ways he found to counter the historic racial separations and injustices he so abhorred.

John was a lifelong athlete and a dedicated swimmer. He swam competitively for the Hill School and Yale. John competed in some of the very first U.S. Masters Swimming meets in the early 1970s in the 30-34 age group. He competed in his last USMS meet in 2018 in the 80-84 age group. Over the decades, he achieved sixteen USMS Top Ten times, in every freestyle event from the 50 to the 1650.

When John and Mimi moved back to Chicago from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania in 2010, John was thrilled about open water swimming in Lake Michigan. He swam in the lake in the summers and competed in Chicago's annual Big Shoulders race several times. Twice, he was the oldest swimmer in the race.

John delighted his family and friends with his whimsical drawings and watercolors. While he lived in Japan, he painted small watercolors and sent them as postcards to the people he loved.

As his cancer progressed, John still swam occasionally in the pool in his condo building. He exercised every day until the week before he died, meeting his daily goal of 1200 steps. He said that the routine gave structure to his day and kept his spirits up. John and his family were immeasurably grateful that John had no pain from his cancer, only debilitating fatigue. Up until his final two days of life, when he started to lose consciousness, he remained sharp, observant, funny, loving, and completely himself.

John was adored by his family and friends for his kindness, warmth, wit, integrity, and sense of adventure. As one of John's childhood friends wrote to Mimi after he died, "John was one of the best in the whole universe."

John is survived by his wife, Mimi, his daughters, Louise LeBourgeois (Steven Carrelli) and Anne LeBourgeois Slotwiner (David Slotwiner), and two grandchildren, Harry Slotwiner (Emilie Zeiss) and Peter Slotwiner.

There will be two memorial services:

Chicago

Saturday, July 20, 10am

Promontory Point Field House

5491 South DuSable Lake Shore Drive

Chicago, IL

New Orleans

Saturday, November 9, 2pm

At the home of George Hero III

416 Planters Canal Road

Belle Chasse, LA

In lieu of flowers, John's family invites donations to The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation and to Whitney Plantation.

The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation:

https://dredscottlives.org

Whitney Plantation:

https://whitneyplantation.org/

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Sign John LeBourgeois's Guest Book

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August 6, 2024

Dr Thomas Verich planted trees.

June 30, 2024

Franklin Cosey Gay posted to the memorial.

June 12, 2024

Legacy Remembers posted an obituary.

2 Entries

Single Memorial Tree

Dr Thomas Verich

Planted Trees

Franklin Cosey Gay

June 30, 2024

I didn't have the pleasure of meeting John, but reading about him helped me understand who helped shape his daughter, Louise, to be every bit of the amazing she is. Sending recognition and gratitude to the LeBourgeoise family as everyone reflects on John's life and his contribution to humanity.

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Sign John LeBourgeois's Guest Book

Not sure what to say?

August 6, 2024

Dr Thomas Verich planted trees.

June 30, 2024

Franklin Cosey Gay posted to the memorial.

June 12, 2024

Legacy Remembers posted an obituary.