Dolores W. Johnson

Dolores W. Johnson was born July 12, 1936, to Lowell E. and Georgia May Gregory. For the first six years of Dolores’s life, the Gregorys lived in Possum Hollow, near Rhineland, Missouri. They lived in a cabin. Lowell farmed the rich bottom land of the Missouri River and raised livestock. Dolores had an older brother named Donald (born 1931, died 2022) and two older sisters, Dorothy (born 1930, died 2022) and Doris (born 1934, now living in Lincoln, NE).

In 1942, Dolores’s mother died from complications due to asthma. Dolores was too young to remember her mother clearly, but she had vague recollections of playing under a kitchen table while her mother cooked. Subsequently, Dolores’s father married Doris Pilcher. The family moved to northwestern Missouri, where they lived near Pattonsburg and later near Bethany. Together, Lowell and Doris had one child, Donna (born 1945, now living in Independence, MO). Dolores attended high school in Bethany. During her senior year, the family moved yet again (to a farm near Jameson), but Dolores’s older sisters (who had moved to Kansas City) paid for Dolores to live in a Bethany boarding house and complete her final year of schooling.

Following her graduation, Dolores took a bus to Kansas City, where she lived with Dorothy and Doris at 4318 Harrison Street and found employment as an office clerk. In the evenings, she took dancing lessons at a downtown studio where she met Bobby R. Johnson. They fell in love and subsequently married on June 23, 1956. For a few months, they lived in a mobile home trailer that was parked in the backyard of Bob’s parents’ house. Later they moved to a North Kansas City trailer park. Their son Gary was born in 1958. Soon afterwards, Bob and Dolores moved into a house at 3804 Wyoming Street in Kansas City’s Volker neighborhood. Their daughter Rhonda was born in 1959.

Bob worked as an ironworker while Dolores cared for the family (and sometimes worked as a bookkeeper). In 1964, their third and final child, Dana, was born. Dolores remained very close to her sister Doris throughout her life. She was happy when a career opportunity opened for Doris's husband, Ed Shepherd, in Lincoln, Nebraska, but it also saddened her as the sisters became separated. They spoke frequently on the phone. Bob and Dolores’s children attended William Volker Elementary School; however, Bob and Dolores wondered if it would be wise for their children to attend an inner-city high school. They searched for an alternative and purchased land three miles west of Bonner Springs, Kansas. Here, Bob built a home on what had once been pasture land. Corn and wheat fields surrounded the house. In 1971, they moved in. On summer Sundays, they water skied on a lake a quarter mile from their backdoor.

For many years, Dolores worked for the Leffel Company on Roanoke Road in Kansas City, while Bob worked for a construction company named Star Sales and Erection. Bob and Dolores’s children attended school in Basehor, Kansas. Gary is a writer. He married Kimberley Smith. They have a daughter named Molly. Rhonda married Bill Oyer. She has two children, Kristen and Allen. Rhonda and Bill enjoy motorcycle trips. They have three grandchildren. Dana married Mark Borton and settled in Topeka, Kansas. They have a daughter named Erika. Dana and Mark run a construction business.

Bob enjoyed tractor pulls, and Dolores enjoyed shopping. They both enjoyed travel and visited sites around the world. They were close friends with Keith and Shirley Carrel. For ten years, Dolores and Shirley ran Karport Auto Supply in Shawnee, Kansas. They were the very first women owners and managers of an auto supply store in the Kansas City area. Don Plesser became their most valuable employee. Even when working the sales counter, Dolores wore eye-catching jewelry and high heels. The lady had an eye for fashion. She filled her closets with shoes. Dolores’s main focus, however, always remained family. She particularly enjoyed family get-togethers, in which she cooked huge meals from scratch. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy remained favorites until cholesterol concerns forced her to change her cooking repertoire. Family members also loved her dinner rolls (affectionately known as her “big buns”). She was a kind and considerate friend, mother, wife, and coworker (although Bob lovingly kidded that she could be a little “mule headed”).

In the late 1990s, Bob was diagnosed with lung cancer. After a long battle, he died in 1999. Dolores found it difficult to continue. Memories of Bob and their time together overwhelmed her. She decided it was best to leave the house that Bob had built. She had a new house built in Overland Park, on King Lane. She moved into the house in 2001. At this time, she met Ernest Williams at Bonner Springs United Methodist Church at grief-counseling group sessions. They married in 2003 and later switched to Sunday services at nearby Heritage United Methodist Church.

Dolores worked accounts receivable for nearly twenty years at Great Plains Pool Supply and considered her coworkers to be her extended family. She was a valued employee until her work habits became somewhat erratic due to a condition that had not yet been diagnosed. Dolores's daughter Dana pushed Dolores's doctors for an answer. In 2017, hospital tests determined that she had a brain tumor the size of a baseball sitting on her right frontal lobe. Surgery partially removed the tumor, but the damage to her brain was irreparable and forever clouded her thoughts. Late one evening, while roaming her house in the dark, she stepped through the open doorway to the basement and tumbled down the stairs, requiring hospitalization for her injuries. She did not respond well to therapy. As a result, her children decided assisted living was the best option and moved Dolores to Sunrise of Lenexa, where Ernest visited her nearly every day. She became very tired due to an enlarged heart and passed away early in the morning of February 27, 2023. She will be laid to rest at Floral Hills Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri, beside her husband of 43 years, Bobby R. Johnson. She is survived by her three children, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. 

Visitation will be held at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday March 11th, 2023, at Newcomer’s Floral Hills Funeral Home (7000 Blue Ridge Blvd., Kansas City, MO) with the funeral preceding immediately afterwards at approximately 10:00 a.m. Funeral services will be presided over by Pastor Maria Campbell of Heritage United Methodist Church.