John Daniel Johnson, born in Flint, MI and residing for the last eighteen years in Charleston, WV, died at Charleston Area Medical Center, surrounded by his family, on March 19, 2024, at the age of 90. John was a loving husband to Claire for nearly 67 years, and a proud father of six daughters and one son.

Early Life

John was born on April 25, 1933 to Frank and Margaret Johnson.

 Margaret died in 1942, when John was just nine years old. After her death, Frank enlisted and was sent to Billie Mitchell Army rehab hospital in Milwaukee where he met and married army nurse Heliene Lombard. When he was later deployed to Guam, a very pregnant Heliene went to Cadillac, MI to live with Frank’s sister Mary who was caring for John, his brothers Mark and Gordon, and sister Mary Ann. When Frank returned from World War II, the family, which now included toddler Heliene Marie, moved to Flint MI, where John’s youngest sister Kathryn was born.

 During high school, John was the photographer for the Flint Central High School newspaper and yearbook. He also captured many photographs of his two younger sisters, all of which he developed and printed himself. His work in sports photography caught the attention of the local newspaper, who wanted to hire him straight out of high school.

Though John remained a lifelong photographer, his professional interests lay elsewhere. Intrigued by the newly emerging field of biochemistry, John studied at and graduated from the University of Michigan, where he also did postgraduate work.

While still an undergrad, John tried an Arthur Murray dance class, more to meet girls than to learn dancing. During a break in his first class, John’s friends asked how he was doing. John replied, “I’m doing great. I’m standing here with my future wife.”

In 1957, John married his dance partner, Claire Elaine Campbell. John and Claire soon began raising their family in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, MI.

John and Claire’s growing family in Michigan

By 1964, John and Claire were the proud parents of five daughters. Their only son Joseph came along in 1967. When the kids were old enough, John introduced them to some of his favorite things in Ann Arbor. He took them to watch the University of Michigan marching band on the practice field, to count dinosaur bones at the Natural History Museum, and to visit art museums.

One of his sisters gave John a recording of The Fiddler on the Roof, in honor of John’s five daughters at the time, the same number as Zero Mostel’s character Tevye. The family played the record on what seemed almost endless repeat, with the result that nearly fifty years later, John’s daughters can still sing many of the songs from memory.

The family grew vegetables in a corner of the backyard and John planted and cared for roses wherever he lived. Peace roses, with their beautiful yellow blossoms and pink highlights, were John’s favorite.

Working for peace is an important part of John’s legacy. From whenever his family first asked him until the last time anyone asked him what he wanted for Christmas or his birthday or Father’s Day, John’s response was nearly always that he wanted “Peace on Earth.” Occasionally, depending on the volatility of the siblings at the moment, John would change his response to, “Peace in this family.” John forbade playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, or any violent play. John always encouraged the siblings to settle their differences and no one was allowed to leave the room of an altercation until an apology had been offered and accepted.

For several of John’s daughters, one of their earliest memories is of their dad taking them for peace marches in Ann Arbor, to pray for the swift end of the Vietnam War. John would hoist the youngest on his shoulders as they all carried candles and sang in the winter wind. The daughters still remember leaving their candles in the snow, in the shape of a peace sign, and returning the next day to see the wax melted in the snow.

Professionally, John’s first job post-graduation involved doing medical research for the Veterans’ Administration. Several years later, he started Johnson Instrumentation Specialties, a business he ran from the basement of the family’s Ann Arbor home. He designed research equipment, often for doctoral candidates or post-doc researchers. Sometimes this involved buckets full of frog eggs in the basement, which before too long brought delight to his girls as the eggs turned into tadpoles circling the buckets. Claire was grateful that the tadpoles disappeared before the basement was overrun with frogs.

Sometimes John would have his children practice the new diagnostic techniques he was developing, reasoning that if his young daughters could perform the tests, an adult lab tech should be able to do the same.

Recognizing his talent for inventing instrumentation for medical diagnostics, a new company, Helena Laboratories, first bought John’s designs and then hired him as their first employee. The new company would be based in Beaumont, Texas.

The Johnson Family in Texas

Hauling the entire Johnson clan of eight from Ann Arbor to Beaumont, Texas in 1970 was quite an adventure, the kids all packed into the station wagon, a U-Haul trailing behind.

Getting settled in Texas was not without its challenges. It took a while to decipher the Texas accent, and John could always be identified as an out-of-stater by his speaking voice, though eventually many in the community wanted to claim him as an honorary Texan. Claire gave birth to one more daughter during their second year in Beaumont, and the family was now complete.

South Park School District in Beaumont was among the last in the country to desegregate — not until 1981, when that youngest daughter was in fourth grade. She became something of a poster child for integration efforts when a camera crew caught footage of her running to catch the bus, a reel that was frequently replayed on local television during news stories about desegregation.

Though the family lived within the parish lines of a predominately white congregation, John made arrangements with church officials to have his family registered as parishioners of St. Pius X, a parish further from their home, but with a more diverse community. The Johnson family remained active members of St. Pius until most of the children were grown.

In 1975, while working a summer job at Helena, John’s eldest daughter saw firsthand how everyone in the company, from the engineers to the immunologists, the marketers and the sales consultants, always approached John when they encountered an intractable problem. She says that her dad knew how to think outside the box — and perhaps never saw boxes at all. John was inclusive and creative, never limited by the “normal” way of doing things, and he helped grow Helena Labs into a global leader in its field, making particular contributions to the diagnosis of sickle cell anemia.

John’s openness and inclusivity were also evident in the way he raised each of his children to be their own unique selves, to develop their personal talents, to love in their unique ways, and to eventually become very different people. John and Claire raised seven children who each knew that no matter how diverse were the paths they might choose, they would always be loved.

John’s faith motivated nearly everything in his life. He especially loved the passage from the first epistle of John where the apostle writes, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God… for God is love…. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

John loved all those he served, beginning with his family, continuing in his parish, at work, and throughout the community. In Beaumont, John brought communion to the residents of a home for people with mental health challenges. Claire and John co-led prayer groups and John served on the founding committee of the Diocese of Beaumont’s Retreat Center. When Vietnamese refugees begun to arrive in the US in vast numbers, the Diocese of Beaumont began an extensive resettlement program, and John and Claire took their family with them to help clean an old Catholic high school and stock it with beds and blankets, food and clothing. When the refugees arrived, the Johnsons helped teach them English and they taught the Johnsons (with varying degrees of success) how to eat with chopsticks.

As important as the things John did were, what was even more important — both to him and to his family — was that John treated everyone he met with respect, and knew how to speak words of encouragement that went straight to the heart.

A caring man with a good sense of fun

The family treasures many random memories of John, memories that build an image of a caring man with a good sense of fun. John would often pause to pray when he encountered a friend in need, whether it was in church or in a grocery store aisle. John not infrequently invited folks without families for Thanksgiving dinner. Watching Star Trek with John offered opportunities for both entertainment and education, with its lessons of inclusivity and its emphasis on exploring, not conquering, the universe. Daughter Samira is especially grateful that her dad helped her see the living spirit of love in each person.

John delighted in any sort of wordplay, and especially enjoyed really, really bad puns. John read Dr. Seuss books to the little ones until everyone in the house had all the words memorized. When John planted beautiful spring bushes, daughter Cindy heard that he was planting “For Cynthia,” so she claimed the forsythia bushes as a personal gift from her dad.

Each morning John would greet the kids with his perpetually off-key wake up songs, at which the middle child Dorothy would throw pillows at her dad, with a high degree of accuracy. John quickly learned to use the door as a shield against pillows to the head. The kids miss the fragrance of the coffee cake or blueberry pancakes he often made on Sunday mornings, and the taste of the chicken cacciatore he would prepare according to his stepmom’s recipe. John loved ice cream, and thought it a perfect way to end each and every day.

His daughter Kathy particularly remembers John’s scientific influence in her life, and will never forget when John helped the kids build a rocket ship from cardboard boxes in the living room. Homemade morse code devices helped keep communication flowing between the spaceship and the family.

John often joined Claire for local quilt guild meetings where they frequently served as elected officers. More often than not, John was the only male member of the guild — but by this time he had become fairly comfortable in a room with high estrogen content. The quilts he and Claire designed and sewed often won quilt show prizes. John’s quilts were known for their bright colors and nature scenes, often featuring frogs.

John and his son Joe shared a love of gardening and of indoor plants. One day Claire told Joe that she needed somewhere to put some beautiful plants. Joe and John disappeared into the garage. After a couple of hours, they emerged with two gorgeous plant stands for her. John’s daughters still remember how he created beautiful rings for them from peach pits, drilling out the center and edges, and finishing them with oils until they were smooth and shiny.

John shared his love of photography with his children and grandchildren. While Samira was in middle school, he taught her how to compose the different elements of a photo. John loved close-ups of flowers and bugs, and taught Samira to see nature in a new way. Over the years, John and Margaret also swapped nature photos including favored close-up shots of flowers with insects. On a cruise to Alaska in 1996, Dorothy and John tried to outdo each other, vying to see who could capture the most beautiful photo of glaciers reflecting on the water.

When John’s granddaughter Jenny was assigned a school science experiment, John helped Jenny make a simple camera and then turn a bathroom into a photo processing room, teaching her how to process film and print the images. Years later, when Jenny helped her mom Kathy, who was John and Claire’s primary caregiver, John gave Jenny his last camera, and taught her how to use it. Jenny enjoys nature photography, and she and her grandfather would review the daily pictures of deer, turkeys, and other wildlife.

Nearly every year, family summer vacations involved driving around the country with everyone crammed into a station wagon for two weeks. John loved sharing Mammoth Caves, the Ozark Mountains, Niagara Falls, Florida beaches, and seemingly every Dinosaur Park in the country. There were also visits to New York City and Washington D.C. and “Oh so much camping.”

A move to Charleston, West Virginia

In 2006, John and Claire moved yet again, this time to Charleston, West Virginia, where their daughter Kathy became their primary caregiver.

In Charleston, John and Claire continued to be active in the local quilt guild, and also in the Church community, including eighteen years at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in South Charleston.

To his family, John continued to be a mountain of stability and love on whom they could always rely. This was especially true during the family’s recent losses. The middle child, Dorothy Heliene Scheiman, died in 2020, after a lengthy struggle with leukemia. In 2021, John’s only son Joseph Johnson died of lung cancer.

During his years in Charleston, John’s connection to frogs continued to evolve. He adopted an acronym that both encapsulated his love of frogs and his outlook on life: FROG = “Fully Rely On God.” John began collecting frogs made of various materials as more and more people began gifting John with frogs. John also began incorporating frogs more frequently into his quilts. 

 Official Family Listing and Memorial Mass Details

John is survived by his wife Claire Johnson and their children Mary Johnson (Lucas Lund), Kathryn Johnson (Carl Offutt), Cynthia Joy (Corwin Joy), Margaret Johnson (Murat Cil), Samira Heather Johnson (Stefan Fuegi), and his sister, Heliene Houdek (Gary Houdek).

John was predeceased by his daughter Dorothy Johnson Scheiman (David Scheiman), his son Joseph Johnson, his sister Mary Ann Iverson (Merlin Iverson), his brother Mark Lawrence Johnson (Jean Johnson), his brother Frank Gordon Johnson (Jan Johnson), and his sister Kathryn Johnson Straine (Fred Straine).

John was lovingly cared for by his daughter Kathryn and her daughter, Jenny Hock, who loved her gramps fiercely. Other grandchildren include Jon Hock (Alyssa Hock), Isaac Fuegi, Gabriel Joy, Noah Cil, Sarah Cil, and Ethan Joy.

John’s Memorial Mass will be March 26, 2024 at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, 305 E Street, South Charleston, WV. Family and friends will gather to remember John at 11:00, followed by the Memorial Mass at noon and a lunch in the church hall.

John’s Memorial Mass will be live streamed on Blessed Sacrament’s Facebook page.

Donations may be sent in John’s honor to Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church.