Charles E. Johnson

Like George Burns, Charles Emerson Johnson made it just past his 100th birthday. His passing was peaceful and he was surrounded by his children in those final days. Charles was preceded in death by his wife Dorothy and their son Paul, his brother Dave, and sister Irene. He is survived by daughters Barbara (Rick) and Carol (Rick), his son Craig (Tracie), grandchildren Eric, Mary, Sam, Jenna, and Charlie, great grandchildren Koa and Loxley, sister-in-law Ollie Johnson, nieces and nephews Brian, Keith, Paula, Glenda, Nancy, Steven, Kathy, and Michael.

Charles was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana on July 2 1922. His father was a quiet, studious man and, after obtaining his PhD, he moved his new family to Salem, Oregon to accept a position as professor of Chemistry at Willamette University. Charles’ mother loved the social aspect of being the wife of an academic. Charles took after his father!

He liked to play baseball and roller skate hockey as a kid. His children never tired of hearing the story of how once, while playing outfield, he stepped on a bee’s nest and got stung quite a few times before he got those pants off and ran!

When he was about 12 or 13 he and a neighbor set up a telegraph line between their bedroom windows. They had a lot of fun until someone figured out what was causing the disruption to their evening radio programs and the boys were forced to take it down!

He enlisted in the Navy during WWII and served as a surgical assistant on board the USS Pitt in the Pacific, including a stop in the city of Aomori, Japan just after the Japanese surrender. Charles was able to return to Japan in 1983 as a tourist. While visiting a temple, a Japanese gentleman introduced himself and asked Charles if he was a veteran. They had a pleasant conversation about how good it was to meet in peacetime.

After the war, Charles attended Oregon State College in Corvallis on the GI bill. While he was home from college in the summer of 1949, some friends set Charles up on a blind date one evening. The friends, however, didn't show, leaving Charles alone with, Dorothy, a nurse at Salem Memorial Hospital. It was love at first sight for them both and they were married the day after Christmas that same year. That love lasted until Dorothy’s death in 2002.

Charles finished his degree and eventually landed a job with the Washington State Department of Agriculture. He moved his new family (son Paul was born in Salem) to Olympia. They bought a two bedroom house on 3 1/2 acres just north of town. A growing family necessitated some remodeling and Charles did much of the work himself. While he had some carpentry skills, remodeling wasn’t his favorite thing so this project pretty much continued in halting fashion until they sold that house in 1994.

His mother was a gourmet cook but Charles liked to make simple meals. If fish was for dinner, Charles was always the cook and he made the best grilled cheese sandwiches, french toast, and oyster stew. It was a Johnson family tradition for the men to do the dishes and Charles carried on with that practice though he enlisted his kids for drying duty.

Each summer Charles and Dorothy would pack up the kids and go on a family vacation. Once or twice this was a camping trip but Dorothy quickly tired of chasing four muddy kids in and out of a leaky tent in the rain. Eventually a friend of Dorothy’s loaned them a cabin at Westport for a week each summer and this became the much loved and anticipated family vacation..

Charles loved books and knowledge. He never just read a book, but studied it, jotting notes in the margins and often making extra notes on a piece of paper he would keep in the book. He especially liked Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, and Albert Einstein. When asked what he wanted to do when he retired he said “go to the library every day!” While he always described himself as an atheist, he was interested in the philosophy of religion and loved discussing this topic especially with his brother Dave. He liked poetry if it had an uplifting message, good meter and rhyme. He liked to garden (both flowers and vegetables). He usually referred to his flowers and shrubs by their Latin names but usually knew the common names as well. He was interested in astronomy so he joined the local astronomy club, bought a telescope, and helped stage “star parties” for the public on the boardwalk at dusk.

Throughout his life Charles kept his sense of humor and gratitude for the simple things in life: a tidy garden, a good piece of pie, a dish of ice-cream, oysters at Dinghy’s, classical music, and maybe especially, the mysteries of the universe. Most people who knew Charles will never look up at the night sky without thinking of him…and that is a sweet thing.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared below.