johnson_homer

HOMER H. JOHNSON FAMILY
PAPERS, 1856-1957
BIOGRAPHY

Bearing the name of his grandfather, Homer Hosea Johnson was born on June 26, 1862 in Huron County, Ohio, on land which had been in the hands of his mother's family since 1815. Hosea Townsend, a man who had fought in the war of 1812, had come to Ohio from Massachusetts to settle in the Western Reserve. Homer Johnson's parents, Alfred L. Johnson, and Philothea C. Townsend, were married in September of 1856. Before marrying, Philothea had been a student of the Oberlin Ladies Department, and left the College in 1855. Alfred oversaw the family farm, and was the president of the First National Bank of New London, Ohio. Homer was the only child born to Philothea and Alfred.

As a youth, the enterprising Homer Johnson cleared and marketed a family wood plot, the proceeds from which provided for his college education. After spending two years at Amherst College, Homer Johnson returned to Ohio and matriculated at Oberlin College. A classics major, Johnson was a member of the Phi Delta fraternity and participated in the publishing of the Oberlin Review. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1885. Upon graduation, Homer went to Harvard, where in 1888, he received A.M. and LL.B. degrees.

While a high school student, Johnson made the acquaintance of Janet "Nettie" Whitcomb. Born in Morrison, Illinois on August 21, 1863, Nettie was the daughter of George Avery Whitcomb and Sarah Annie (Pound) Whitcomb . Upon her graduation from Oberlin in 1885, Nettie left Ohio to live in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she taught for two years. During their student years, and following their graduation from Oberlin, Nettie and Homer began a courtship which culminated with their marriage on August 11, 1888. Homer's marriage with Nettie was short lived owing to her death from tuberculosis on November 1, 1890. Nettie and Homer had one child which died as an infant.

As a young lawyer, Homer joined his friend and classmate M.B. (Blake) Johnson (no relation) to create the small private practice M.B. and H.H. Johnson. Soon Blake and Homer became two of the most prominent attorneys at practice in the Cleveland area, concentrating mainly in the area of trust law. Their firm acted as council for such corporations as Blake, White, and Garford, the White Sewing Machine Company, and acted as the executor for the will of Johnson's long time college friend, Charles Martin Hall (d. 1914). M.B. and H.H. Johnson also formed the American Trust Corporation which subsequently merged with Union Trust Corporation. Finally, the firm was instrumental in blocking the proposed merger of the Union Bank of Commerce with the National City Bank of Cleveland in 1943. Aside from his law practice, Homer Johnson spent 25 years as a professor at Western Reserve Law School where he taught Constitutional Law between 1892 and 1917.

On June 26, 1896, Homer married Elizabeth Gertrude Beggs. She died two months later of pneumonia while they were on their honeymoon in Europe.

In October of 1901, Homer married Louise Pope, and unlike his two previous marriages, this union lasted for over 55 years. An 1891 Wellesley graduate, Louise had taught school before marrying Homer. Once married, Louise was an active member of the Cleveland community, serving on the Advisory Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Day Nursery Association, and the Cleveland Women's City Club. Louise also served a term as the president of the Wellesley College Alumnae Association. Furthermore, she and Homer parented four children; Jeanette Johnson Dempsy (6-26-02), Alfred Pope Johnson (6-18-03, who died as a infant), Philip Johnson, the architect, (6-8-06) , and Theodate Johnson (8-13-07).

During the first World War Homer Johnson served his country in a variety of ways. In 1915 he was appointed to the Polish Mission for the American Commission to Establish Peace. Organized by Howard Taft, and including other members such as Herbert Hoover and Henry Morganthau Sr., this unit's mission was to distribute relief supplies and food in Poland while simultaneously investigating reports of the massacres of Jewish civilians. In 1917 Johnson served as the Chairman of the North Ohio Draft Appeals Board, as well as participating in the work of the Fuel Commission of Ohio. In 1919, he was appointed by Newton D. Baker, the Secretary of War for Woodrow Wilson, to be a member of the Liquidation Commission War Department. With this appointment, Homer spent 18 months in Paris overseeing the liquidation of the business and financial affairs of the American Expeditionary Forces stationed in England and France .

Stemming from his own personal convictions, and owing to his war time experiences, Johnson was an avid supporter of internationalism. He supported the League of Nations, arguing that with its failure, "we're going to have another rocking of the boat and the old structure's going to be hard put." 1

Johnson's civic contributions were as full and varied as his professional and political activities. Johnson served on the boards of the Cleveland School of Art and the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce in 1912. He was also an active philanthropist for his home town of New London, Ohio. He contributed funds which covered the building of the New London Library, a waterworks and sewage disposal plant, and supplied $65,000 which covered New London's portion of funds for a WPA project for park improvement.

Johnson also served for 24 years as a trustee for Oberlin College. As a member of the Board of Trustees from 1900 to 1924, Johnson had the opportunity to support and enrich the institution that had help form him as a young man. While a trustee, Johnson was instrumental in the development of the art museum collection and in the negotiations with Cass Gilbert for the building of Finney Chapel in 1908. Another significant portion of Johnson's tenure was devoted to overseeing the execution of Charles Martin Hall's will.

Hall had appointed Homer Johnson and Arthur Vining Davis to act as the executors of his will. Johnson and Davis were to oversee the proper disbursement of the funds bequeathed to Oberlin within fifteen years of Hall's death, excluding $600,000.00 which was to be used for the erection of an auditorium in memory of Hall's mother, Sophronia Brooks Hall.

In 1924, Johnson terminated his tenure as an Oberlin College Trustee. Irrespective of the circumstances surrounding Johnson's resignation, the Trustees graciously responded to Johnson by voting "not merely an expression of appreciation of his service, but their desire that he should remain `in close and sympathetic touch' with the college." 2 After Johnson's death in 1960, the Board of Trustees again acknowledged Johnson's service to Oberlin College expressing their appreciation of Johnson's active involvement in the building and 1953 dedication of the Sophrinia Brooks Hall Auditorium.

In his later years, Johnson remained a man of tenacity, always looking to the future, rather than reminiscing of his past. "To hell with the past", he was once quoted to have stated. "If you engage in a quarrel between the past and the present, your future is a failure."3 An avid reader, his desk was always cluttered with books and newspapers, including his daily reading of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Manchester Guardian .

Homer Hosea Johnson outlived his third wife, Louise (d. 11-9-57), by three years, and died on March 26, 1960.

Sources consulted