Jean Simon

Jean Amedee Simon was born into a prominent family in Les Cayes, Haiti, on December 31, 1932, to Amedee Simon, an attorney and the grandson of Haitian President Antoine Simon, and Helene Mazile, a striking beauty and formidable matriarch. He was a feisty, intelligent and trouble-making boy, who grew up to become a successful trusts and estates attorney in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince. While in law school, he met and married his wife of nearly 60 years, Cleomie Brouard, the daughter of Carl Brouard, a poet laureate of Haiti.

In the early 60s, he and Mimi, as she was affectionately known, were part of the great exodus of Haitian professionals escaping Papa Doc Duvalier’s tyrannical rule. Jean left behind all that he had built and all he had known to forge from scratch a life in the United States. Once here, he took any job he could find. He took three, in fact. By day he was a janitor at the B. Altman department store, at night he was an orderly in a city hospital, and on weekends he worked at a carwash. He went to school nights to learn his new language and eventually worked his way into a position as a social worker with the City of New York, spending the rest of his professional career there. He was a deeply learned man who spent much of his spare time reading history, law, political science, and philosophy.

Jean was also a man of unusual integrity and forthrightness. These character traits were striking, even shocking, in these ‘truth optional,’ ‘situational ethics,’ and relativistic times. He was a man of integrity in the mathematical sense of the term. He was an integer, meaning he was one, one person, not two or three. The private Jean and the public Jean were the same. He was, moreover, a man of stern character: cutting no corners, making no excuses, never complaining—and never tolerating anyone who did. Jean Simon knew who he was, and having settled on his purpose, he walked steadily toward it, ignoring all else, his moral compass pointing true north.

The words of Proverbs 4:25-27 sum him up well:

Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths of your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or to the left. Keep your foot from evil.

He is survived by his loving and admiring daughter, granddaughter, siblings, nieces and nephews. His legacy lives on. Long may he wave.