Nan H. Johnson

January 12, 1930 - November 25, 2022 On New Year's Day 2020, Nan Johnson saw the cause to which she'd dedicated her working life – the advancement of women's equality – take symbolic form on the streets of Pasadena, California. That's when 99 women of all ethnicities, attired in Suffragist white, marched in the Tournament of Roses Parade as part of a float commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave U.S. women the right to vote.

It was the culmination of Nan's decades of public service: as a Monroe County legislator in upstate New York (including serving as the first, and to date the only, female majority leader); a political science and women's studies professor at the University of Rochester; a trustee of the State University of New York; a passionate second-wave feminist; and an inexhaustible warrior for child welfare, prison reform, public education and countless other measures of how societies treat their most vulnerable.

But as Nan would've been the first to say, although she was one of its driving forces, the Rose Parade project couldn't have happened without the multicultural cooperation of scores of dedicated women of goodwill.

Born in Pittsburgh, PA on Jan. 12, 1930, Nan died Nov. 25, 2022, in Pasadena, where she'd moved with her husband of 65 years, James William "Bill" Johnson, in 2017 to be closer to their children and grandchildren, who surrounded her with loving gratitude in her final moments.

Public spiritedness came naturally to Nan, who was born Nancy Jean Heffelfinger to Vernon Eugene "Hefty" Heffelfinger, a U.S. Dept. of the Interior inspector, and Kathryn Reed Heffelfinger, a homemaker.

After graduating from Asbury Park High School, she went on to study political science at Barnard College and was chosen president of the senior class of 1952. She attended Cornell Law School at Cornell University for one year before deciding to begin work as a child welfare advocate while pursuing her Master's in political science at the University of Rochester.

That began a decades-long relationship with the university, where in later decades Nan became an adjunct associate professor in the Political Science department and, in 1995, founding director of the university's Susan B. Anthony Center. Anthony, one of the guiding lights of the early women's rights movement, lived in Rochester for 40 years and donated her papers to the UR library. Under Nan's leadership, the center developed its mission to translate research into policies that advance social justice and equality.

The university also was where Nan met her husband-to-be, Bill, a professor of English literature. (Nan's brief first marriage had ended in divorce.)

After years of volunteer community activism, Nan was elected to the Monroe County, NY legislature in 1975 and served there for 20 years. She was the first woman and first Democrat to be chosen as majority leader of the 29-member legislative body. As legislator, she served for six years as chairwoman of the Human Services Committee, overseeing the largest part of the County budget, and was instrumental in the formation of the Maternal, Infants and Children Policy Group.

Descended from a long line of kindly but steely matriarchs, Nan was the sort of woman that other women instinctively turn to as a model and mentor. In 1998 she co-chaired Forum 98, a gathering of academics, policy makers and feminist activists marking the 150th anniversary of the first U.S. women's rights convention, which was held in Seneca Falls, NY in July 1848 and attended by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass. She also was instrumental in furthering the ambition and reach of the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls.

In 1975, then Gov. Hugh Carey appointed her to the board of trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY), which she served on until 1990, working on a committee that dealt with budgets, capital construction and investments.

Despite the long hours she spent crafting legislation and working with constituents, she also managed to raise two children, host endless dinner parties and get-togethers, take homemade fudge to friends, roam the planet, design the retirement home on the North Carolina coast where she and Bill spent many years, stargaze and rescue baby turtles. She was classy but down-to-earth, fun and funny.

In her final years, while a resident of the Villa Gardens retirement community in Pasadena, she gave a talk in which she cited the words of Susan B. Anthony: "Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done."

Bill Johnson died May 9, 2022. He and Nan are survived by their daughter Miranda Johnson-Haddad and her husband Mark Haddad (who proudly marched as a "suffragent" with the 99 women in the Rose Parade), of Pasadena; son Reed Johnson and his wife Marla Dickerson of Los Angeles; and grandchildren William Haddad, Elinor Haddad and her husband Cris Swain, and Annabel Haddad, all of Pasadena.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Nan Johnson Legacy Fund, c/o Rochester Area Community Foundation, 500 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607.