Philanthropist Betty Wold Johnson dies at 99

Betty Wold Johnson, a beloved local philanthropist who supported numerous area organizations, died on May 5. She was 99.

Johnson, the matriarch of the Johnson family, was the mother of New York Jets owners Christopher Johnson and Woody Johnson. The Jets announced her death Friday night.

Johnson was often referred to as “The First Lady of the Jets” by players, and called them her “grandchildren.” She was renowned for her philanthropic efforts and was a long-time contributor to arts, education, and healthcare initiatives in New York and New Jersey.

Christopher Johnson is currently the Jets’ chairman and CEO, while Woody Johnson is serving as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. Woody Johnson purchased the team in 2000 and the franchise became an important part of his mother’s life.

“There are very few people in this world who live to 99. And I’m sure if you go back and look at everything she did for other people, you could probably write a book on her from a philanthropic standpoint. She had such a charitable heart and a charitable way about her,” Pro Football Hall of Famer Curtis Martin said in a statement about Johnson for the Jets.

Johnson was raised in Minnesota and often attended Golden Gophers games with her father, Karl Christian Wold.

She enlisted in the Navy’s WAVE after the attack on Pearl Harbor and was stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas. She also helped train young fighter pilots in flight simulators at Rhode Island’s Naval Air Station.

She later married Robert Wood Johnson III, the grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I, co-founder of Johnson & Johnson. The couple had five children. Robert Wood Johnson III died in 1970. In 1978, Betty Wold Johnson married Douglas Bushnell, who died in 2007.

“To me, two of her greatest qualities were humility and approachability. Ms. Johnson was such an approachable and humble lady,” said former Jets quarterback Chad Pennington. “I think of Ms. Johnson as nothing but first-class with how she treated people, how she carried herself, and how she represented herself and her family. She understood that life was about people and having good relationships with people and through success being able to share some of that success with others.”

In 2008, Johnson donated $11 million to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the single largest individual gift in the center’s history. She was a supporter of many Princeton and New York arts and science institutions, including McCarter Theatre, the Nature Conservancy of New Jersey, the Liberty Science Center, the Arts Council of Princeton, the Princeton Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She once said she was drawn to the arts because they feed the spirit.

In the medical arena, she funded the rebuilding of Princeton Hospital and, through Project Renewal, she supported aid to the homeless and programs providing mobile health services to those in need. She was an annual leading supporter of the Jets Kickoff Luncheon benefiting the Lupus Research Alliance and its goal to prevent cure, treat and ultimately cure lupus.

Johnson had a passion for education. She lived in Hopewell in recent years and donated her Princeton home and many of its contents at 108 Edgerstoune Road to the Hun School to become the headmaster’s house. She also supported the development of the school’s John Gale Hun Program for American Civics Education. She was also a supporter of Princeton Day School, where she had served as a trustee and trustee emerita. Three of her children and a step-child attended the school, and she underwrote several initiatives at the school.

In Princeton, Johnson supported many causes, including funding the restoration of the Mountain Lakes Preserve. She recently donated $500,000 to McCarter Theatre in honor of Emily Mann’s 30 years as artistic director. And in March, she donated $250,000 to the Princeton Area Community Foundation’s COVID-19 relief fund to help nonprofits in the region that are supporting residents with food, shelter, and other services during the crisis.

A friend to many, she was once asked what her greatest pleasure was and she responded, “Life.”