A tribute to the life of Mrs. Ethel Francene Hunter Johnson will be held on Wednesday, December 21 at Centuries Memorial Funeral Home at 8801 Mansfield Road in Shreveport, with a visitation at 12:00 p.m. and the service to begin at 1:00 p.m. Presiding over the service will be her dear nephew Reverend Mel Campbell. Francene passed away after an all-too-long illness and joined her Savior Jesus Christ and her family and friends in heaven.
Francene was born on September 16, 1933 in Heflin, Louisiana to Pratt and Minnie Mae Hunter. She married James H. Johnson in 1950 and together had six children, two of whom only lived briefly. She and her husband Jimmy adopted their beloved grandson, Jim Branch, when he was five years old.
Francene’s first real job was working at Schumpert Hospital in the nursery where she got to take care of the babies. She soon found her life-time career with South Central Bell as a telephone operator, eventually becoming a service representative, which gave her a lifetime of freedom and choices. She chose to give her children all of the things she did not have during the Great Depression and WWII. She sewed clothing for them, she encouraged them, and made sure they got to pursue their dreams and hobbies. Francene loved to read and she traveled all over the world and through time inside the hundreds and hundreds of books she read in her lifetime.
There were some very special women in Francene’s life who defined her in many ways. Her Aunt Nora (whom she called Auntie) and her cousin’s wife Margaret Ray, her mother-in-law Lucille Burchfield Johnson, her husband’s aunt, Camille Bell, her sister-in-law, Pat Campbell, and many other women who showed her the way to carry unbelievably heavy loads with grace and dignity. She loved her sisters dearly and traveled with them often. The good Lord only knows what those ladies got up to on those infamous vacations.
Francene paid forward every gift given to her, whether it was spiritual, tangible, or an act of kindness. She was the defining influence in the lives of her many grands and great grands, rocking them and caring for them when they were babies and enjoying real time with them as they grew. Francene was the one who showed up to help those who were sick and passing from this world to the next. She had a special gift with people in hospice. She stayed with many family members through those difficult times. In fact, any time she was in a doctor’s office or hospital waiting room, people gravitated to her and they’d speak to each other warmly as if they weren’t even strangers.
Francene was preceded in death by so many people she loved: her husband James H. Johnson, her babies, Cheryl Lucille and James Thomas, her parents Pratt and Minnie, her sisters and brothers Elmer, Edward "Snookie", Elton, Jean Mills, Ernell Riner, Elaine Bogues, and her granddaughter Cory Katherine Hiers. She is survived by her children Elizabeth Hickman and her husband Ron, Roxanne Graffanini, Scott Johnson, Susan (Jafran) Reeks and her husband Stuart, and Jim Johnson and his wife April; grandchildren Ellen Fontenot, Victoria Hise, Tommy Wollerson, Zachary Carter, Landry Reeks, and Jackson Reeks; and her great grandchildren Kate and Claire Fabrycki, and Emily Wilson and her husband Cody, and their baby girl Alex.
The family would like to thank Southern Care Hospice and especially Francene’s nurses: Tammy, Victoria and Brenda. They extend a special thank you to her CNA Sheila Russell, who was especially loving to her as she tended to her needs. Francene’s children, Scott, Susan, and Roxanne would like to thank their sister Elizabeth for caring for their mother at home until the very end.
The family also requests for those that so choose to make donations in her memory to the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse of NWLA (CADA) or Holy Angels Residential Facility in Shreveport.
