Patricia Thomas JOHNSON

JOHNSON, Patricia Thomas died on December 31, 2017. She was 95 years old and left behind a generations-long legacy of love and kindness. Pat was born in 1922 in Valley City, North Dakota. Her parents were Ervine Roebuck Thomas, a banker and World War I veteran from Nevada, and Ruby Schroeder Thomas, an elementary school teacher, from North Dakota. Her father died of tuberculosis when Pat was 2 1/2 years old. They had been living at the TB Sanitarium in Colfax, California. Meanwhile, her mother had also contracted TB. So Pat was sent to Valley City, North Dakota, to live with her three aunts and grandmother for the next 5 years. Pat was nearly eight years old when she saw her mother again. They moved to Reno, Nevada, to live with Pat's paternal grandmother, so Pat's mother could complete her education, earning the equivalent of a teaching degree. Three years later, the two moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where they settled. Pat graduated from Stephens Junior College in Columbia, Missouri, then enrolled at the University of Arizona. She joined the Pi Beta Phi sorority and met Marvin "Mike" Johnson. They married six weeks later, in May 1944 and moved to Phoenix in 1945. Pat became a gourmet cook long before most Americans even knew what balsamic vinegar was. She studied cooking under Marcella Hazan in Italy and at La Verene in Paris. She loved the adventure of travel, the challenge of bridge, and the thrill of baseball. (Maybe one had to love baseball to feel the thrill....) She loved to go "antiquing" anywhere, finding treasures with which she filled her home. She thrived on the beaches of Southern California, in Rincon del Mar near Carpenteria in the Fifties, La Jolla from the Sixties through the Nineties, and Oregon in the 2000s. Ol' Blue Eyes was the musical love of her life, and she kept his autographed photo in her guest bathroom. When the grandchildren and great-grandchildren came along, she reveled in her new role. She was known for her quesadillas, chocolate sheet cakes, divinity, and fruitcakes, as well as for the lace-like oatmeal cookies that she'd fit neatly into a Yuban coffee can and give to her grandchildren every Christmas. Pat is survived by two daughters, Patricia Doerr (Dr. John) and Susan Johnson; her son, Thomas Johnson (Nancy); seven grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. Arrangements by VISTOSO FUNERAL HOME.