Virginia Johnson

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Virginia "Jinny" Lou Johnson died Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, at the Spring Valley Hospital in Las Vegas.

Jinny was born to Frank and Clarabell Link July 31, 1942, and grew up on the family farm near LaPorte, Indiana, with siblings William and Kathleen, as well as a "family" of dogs, feral cats, cows and the chickens who would peck her when she collected their eggs.

She attended the University of Indiana, receiving a bachelor of science in physical therapy in 1964.

She moved to Lexington, Kentucky, to work as a physical therapist at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, where she met and then married a surgical intern named Ernest "Jack" Duval Johnson III in 1965. Their honeymoon was interrupted by the draft -- the Vietnam War was on -- and Jinny accompanied her husband to Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, where she spent the next two years as an Army wife to a captain in the Second Armored Division and brought two sons into the world, Matthew Duval Johnson and Thomas Hamilton Johnson.

Shortly after leaving the Army and Texas behind in 1967, the family moved to Cape Girardeau, where they would live for the next 25 years before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, after the boys flew the nest.

Jinny was smart, well-read and extensively world-traveled. She loved hiking, skiing, snowshoeing and scuba diving, and pursued these interests wherever she went, from family winter vacations in Colorado to many trips to the Caribbean and beyond. Over the course of her life, she spent months traveling abroad with family and friends, living for a time with Jack in her favorite country of Italy, and hiking both the Grand Tour de Mont Blanc in Europe and the Milford Track in New Zealand, among many other great adventures.

Her love of cooking and cuisine led her to become a student of both Julia Child and Jacques Pepin.

Sophisticated and elegant, she remained at her core a sweet farm girl from Indiana who loved simple things -- her garden, flowers, sitting in her swing, her pets, all animals big and small. But most of all, Jinny loved other people -- family, friends, children, strangers in need -- dearly and deeply with all her heart. She spent her life giving to and serving others.

She was an amazing mother, wife, grandmother, sister, aunt and a loyal and devoted friend. She was a lifelong volunteer, working with Meals on Wheels and other charities, and teaching English as a second language to elementary school children for six years in the Santa Fe Public Schools. As anyone who knew her will attest, her love for others was as infinite and boundless as her patience and grace. She was her family's heart.

Jinny passed away with Jack, Matt and Tom at her bedside and is survived by them, her brother and sister, her sisters-in-law, her teenage granddaughters -- Ella Claire and Astrid Boone, a host of nephews, friends, her beloved Portuguese water dog, Sailor, and many others whose hearts she touched and who are broken by her passing.

May her love shine through all those who knew and remember her. The world needs more people like her.

Rest in peace, Virginia Lou Johnson -- July 31, 1942, to Dec. 8, 2021.

Donations may be made in her name to the National Scleroderma Foundation in Danvers, Massachusetts -- www.national.scleroderma.org.