Patricia Ann Johnson

Patricia Ann Johnson, age 85, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, died at 12:15 A.M. on Wednesday, December 14, 2016, at Heritage Park Nursing Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, after a brief illness. Ms. Johnson grew up in Edgerton, Ohio, in an athletic family that would compete with their neighbors and would soon develop a competitive rivalry with the DeGroff family from Bryan that proved to be exciting to all participants, many times benefitting the Red Cross and bragging rights until the next game. She was a 1948 graduate of Edgerton High School and in 1950 she began traveling the country for a few years playing professional exhibition basketball with the Hazel Walkers Arkansas Travelers. Her contract to play basketball afforded her the money to be able to attend and graduate from Moorehead State in Kentucky, earning a degree in physical education and English. She would go on to receive her Master’s Degree at Ball State University and then taught at Ball State and numerous high schools. She later received her real estate license, which she was involved in while residing in the Tuscon, Arizona, area, where she owned her own business for awhile. The daughter of Joe and Polly (Stephens) Johnson, she was born in Camden, Michigan, on December 23, 1930, one of twelve children. Survivors include her sisters-in-law, Rose Mary Johnson and Ann Johnson, and numerous loving and caring nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents; five sisters, Dorothy Salsbury, Arizona Lapham, Rosemary Sprow Banning, Betty Johnson and Emma Mae Johnson; and six brothers, Dewey, Golden, Lemuel, Roy, Ezra and Gene. Pat will be sorely missed by all those lives she touched, especially by her sisters-in-law, her close friends in many states and her several generations of nephews and nieces who rallied around her and surrounded her with love and care. Services will be held on Saturday, December 17, 2016, at 1:00 P.M. in the Krill Funeral Home, Edgerton, with Reverend R.L. Barnett officiating. Interment will follow in Maple Grove Cemetery, Edgerton. The family will receive visitors in the funeral home for one hour prior to the service, beginning at 12:00 P.M. While flowers are always appreciated, Pat requested that contributions be made to Heartland Hospice or to the ASPCA.