Archie Lowell Thing

KINGSTON - Beloved husband, father, grandfather and friend - Archie Lowell Thing (known to most as Lowell) passed away in Kingston, New York on April 1st, 2026. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1933, and soon after moved to Mount Vernon, Illinois where he lived until he was 10 years old. He was an only child and was raised by his mother, Vada. They moved around mostly in the southern United States with her retail management job, and Lowell finished his High School years in Miami, Florida. In several small towns while growing up, he acted in radio plays, deciding to become an actor rather than a lawyer (an aspiration later replaced by the need to make a living). After majoring in radio and television broadcasting at the University of Miami, he served in the US Air Force (1956-1961) as a navigator on C-124 transports where he had the good fortune to see some of the world - from Nord, the Danish weather station on the Northern tip of Greenland, to Puerto Montt in the Southern part of Chile. In 1960, he took part in the United Nations Relief Mission to the Congo.

After the Air Force, he was a classical music announcer at radio stations in Coral Gables, Florida and New York City. For several years he was the early morning on-air news announcer for WNYC and a classical music announcer for The Riverside Church Radio Station (also in NYC). In 1966, he married Suzanne (Taylor), his best friend and wife of 60 years. In 1969, he answered a newspaper ad, and without knowing the difference between a bit and a byte, soon found himself in a programming school for IBM. For the next 27 years in Yorktown and Kingston, NY, while information technology evolved from punched cards to personal computers, he wrote and planned technical manuals for mainframe software and hardware products. As IBM began to discover the Internet, he created one of IBM's first product websites. In 1994, he created the City of Kingston's first (although unofficial) website. In 1995, he founded WhatIs.com, a web source of Internet and computer terms that became very popular worldwide. He sold WhatIs to TechTarget in 2000 and continued to edit the site until fully retiring at age 70, in 2006.

During his lifetime, Lowell was fortunate to visit at least 62 different countries, occasionally with his family. He went salmon fishing in Alaska, flew over the magnetic pole, saw the World's Fair in Brussels, and accidentally spent a week in Khartoum, Sudan. With his wife and daughters he visited many castles and all of the British Isles, Venice, Italy and Beijing, China. With his wife Suzanne, he saw condors fly at Colca Canyon in Peru, gazed at Roman ruins at Ephesus in Turkey, spent a week on the Ile de las Cite, and walked among the penguins on Desolation Island off the Antarctic Peninsula.

He was an active member of The Friends of Historic Kingston where he served on its board and for a few years as President. Hoping to help preserve the city's architectural and cultural heritage, he served on and was Chairman of the Kingston Landmarks Commission. He wrote the application that in 1985 resulted in the Chestnut Street Historic District. On behalf of The Friends of Historic Kingston in a coalition that included Scenic Hudson, he helped to oppose oversized developments on the Hudson River that have now become state parks. A lover of libraries, he served on the boards of the Kingston Area Library and Mid-Hudson Library System. For a few years he rowed with the Rondout Rowing Club, and was a long-time member of the YMCA. In 2015, his book, The Street That Built a City - McEntee's Chestnut Street, Kingston, and the Rise of New York was published by Black Dome Press. In 2022, Cover Treasure - The Life and Art of Margaret Armstrong was also published by Black Dome Press.

As a life-long avid reader, one of his passions was collecting decorated book covers from the late 19th and early 20th century. He recently donated his large collection - including many cover designs by Margaret Armstrong (known as one of the most famous cover designers of this period) to the University of West Virginia.

He is survived by wife Suzanne, daughters Emily and Hillary, grand-daughters, Liliana, Dahlia and Alethea, son-in-law Jeffery Davis, Ivan Lajara father of Liliana, brother-in-law Robert Taylor and sister-in-law, Linda Broadway. He told them all that, as exciting and as lucky as his life had been, his family had been his greatest adventure.

His family and friends will remember Lowell as kind, loving, thoughtful and generous - a man who would stop to help anyone in need or just to ask if they were alright. At Lowell's request, there will be no funeral, however condolences can be given at (Leahy funeral home webpage). In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate contributions in Lowell's name given to: The Friends of Historic Kingston , the Edwin Ford Fund, the YMCA or Hudson Valley Hospice .