Jay Johnson

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Leigh Anne Dear [send private message]

Jay Johnson is a descendant of Mayflower Passenger John Howland, Sr., Elizabeth (Howland) Tilley, Mary (Allerton) Cushman, Thomas Cushman, John Tilley, Joan (Hurst) Tilley, Isaac Allerton, Mary (Norris) Allerton, Richard Warren, Francis Billington, Christian (Penn) Billington, + 4 non-unique direct Mayflower ancestors already named due to pedigree collapse..

Biography

My brother was a happy baby, always joyful, and laughing comfortable with outdoor activities and animals. These were strong Johnson and Delvin traits that Jay happily inherited. He was his mother's third child in five years, a woman who had been experiencing ever worsening levels of undiagnosed illness (lupus) which diminished her both emotionally and physically. During the 1950's physician's threw opiates around like it was aspirin even when a woman was expecting. Due to this trend, and mother's desperation to not feel miserable all the time, my handsome baby brother was born addicted to opiates and with an epileptic nervous system. Somehow his mood was never affected despite having years of various physical therapies to correct birth deficiencies. He could have been understandably of sullen temper but he was not. My brother was a happy boy. A by-product of his physical damage was his communication skills which suffered all his life but his Grandfather Delvin and grand-uncle Bill Hindman, who was always around, never talked either so Jay grew up comfortable with the idea of silence being the man's place. Besides, it was the women in the family who talked. Physically, like his sisters, Jay was tall and well proportioned. He didn't participate in athletics although he was always physically active. He loved wood-working in high-school and he was pretty good at it. I remember a lovely walnut stained pine trestle table he built. It was sturdy, well constructed and artfully pleasing.

While growing up Jay's greatest joy was being outdoors, like the rest of the family; hiking, camping, fishing, boating in one of the Arizona lakes. Friends over the years had parents with small private planes and he took to flying well without motion sickness (which runs in the family). Living in Phoenix also meant Jay grew up traveling the American West on family trips usually in his grandparent's car's and later his own. The Interstate systems were well developed and traffic wasn't overpopulated as it later became in the 1990's. Three-hundred-fifty miles west as the crow flies is Los Angeles, California and say hello to San-Diego along the way. A quick trip to L.A. on the I-10 Interstate leaving after school for the weekend, or summer vacation and six hours later arriving at Grand-Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Fuzz Hodgson in Long Beach on Roxanne Ave. a few miles from Disneyland and the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco was just around the corner.

During those trips what he saw along the way wasn't just sand and rock and far off desert mountain ranges in the night; when he looked up it was a complete half-globe of black sky filled with twinkling glitter from horizon to horizon. He could listen to Mystery Theatre on the radio and watch the orbits of the man-made satellites traveling west to east always in the same area of the night sky. Jet airliners traveling 30,000 feet or higher were easy to distinguish the atmosphere being so clear. Night flying jets were also numerous due to the Air Force bases situated throughout these parts. Whereas In the daytime whether on the road or in town jet contrails filled the air and flyby's were a normal occurrence. So were sonic booms. These were the days of 'macho' test pilots and they were stationed in our communities. Jay went to high-school with their children.

Once Jay graduated from high school he joined the Air Force and remained with them almost two decades living mostly on overseas deployment with his wife. He was a jet mechanic, he had a knack like his grandfather Johnson for anything mechanical. He was good at taking things apart and putting them back together and the Air Force became his whole life for a time. His son and only child, Mikael Zeno Johnson, was born in Oxfordshire, England during one of his father's assignments. The family lived in Saudi Arabia and Jay later returned for several additional middle east assignments while his wife and son remained in Phoenix, Arizona.

In late 2017 both Jay and wife Debi Leah (Meltzer) Johnson died Unexpectedly within two months of each other. Jay's father, Zeno Martel Johnson III died the month between them. Jay's father lived to almost ninety but two non-healing broken hips suffered from a fall caused rapid decline and Jay attended his father in his ending days as he'd done with his father's mother Maxine Barnes Johnson in the 1990's.

It was a comfort to me knowing Jay and Debi Johnson were in Phoenix over the years. That was the family's home town. Jay and Debi were fortunate that his retirement saw the return to Phoenix of Jay's mother's brother, Uncle Wayne Delvin and wife Dorothy. They bought a home on top of a hill in the Black Canyon foothills town of Wickenburg. Jay became very close to his Uncle and Aunt Delvin before they passed away.

Jay and Debi were a curious couple to outsiders, they were filled with cultural contradictions and opposite natures but their sincerity and willingness to 'soldier-on' despite serious health challenges was admirable. They leave in this world a son no-one could be more proud of, a good man who works hard, is accomplished and loves his family more than anything. An individual who has learned that an unexamined life isn't worth living there-for the individual has to rise above challenges and figure it out. Thanks to his parents he faces life with this advantage. Thanks to his parents Jay and Debi.

Sources

Vital records are not yet in the public domain. When they become available the profile will be updated. Acknowledgements
This personalized biography is authored by Jay's oldest sister Leigh Anne (Johnson) Dear