John Bernard Johnson

John Bernard Johnson was born June 20, 1917 in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the son of John Lewis Johnson and Anna Johanna Hoffmann – the second of their fourteen children. Johnny’s childhood included lots of sports (especially baseball – playing and coaching), an early morning paper route, and helping his father with construction jobs and his uncle with his poultry business. John had a talent in math and science and developed a keen interest in radios. So after graduating from Okolona High School in Louisville, he studied radio technology at Louisville Institute of Technology and Valparaiso Technical Institute. During World War II he was stationed on Treasure Island, California, as a sonar and navigation instructor, and then at Chicago Navy Pier as Chief in the Radio Materiel School, supervising sonar platform instruction. When in San Francisco, the young naval officer had met the love of his life, Mary Corley, his future wife of seventy-four years. They married in The City in 1944, later spent time in Chicago, and then moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area. The radio and television business was booming then. Capitalizing on this and his technical skills, John and a friend from his Navy days, Earl Crocker, started their own business, Crocker-Johnson T.V. They sold and repaired televisions, radios, recorders, and hi-fi’s in San Francisco for almost forty years.

In 1953 John and Mary moved from San Francisco to San Carlos where they settled and raised their three children – Kathleen, Paul and Teresa. They were active members of the St. Charles Catholic Parish. John enjoyed playing on the Men’s Club softball team, being a German member of the Italian Catholic Federation, and helping with the parish carnival and many other projects. He also was a volunteer for F.I.S.H. (Fellowship in Serving Humanity), primarily driving seniors to and from doctor appointments (in his later years, oftentimes driving patients younger than himself.) Community square dancing also was a favorite past-time for John and Mary. But being a part of the Belmont Trailer Club was a sincere passion. The group of friends traveled around California in their R.V.s enjoying fellowship and adventure.