Lloyd O. Johnson

Lloyd Oliver Johnson was born in Holdrege, Nebraska, in 1933, to Oliver Martin Johnson and Eleanore Gladis (Brown) Johnson. He died on July 30, 2026, with family by his side at Cedar Point in McPherson, Kansas. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Denver, Colorado, where Lloyd grew up. He graduated from West High School in Denver, attended Denver University for 6 months, then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force for 4 years, where he worked as an aircraft mechanic. During his service, he was based in Maine, several locations in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and California. He also had a couple of short-duration assignments in Italy and Algeria. After his service, Lloyd began working as an aircraft mechanic for United Airlines in San Francisco and then transferred to Stapleton Airport in Denver to be closer to his family.

Lloyd met Vera Holtzee at United Airlines at Stapleton Airport. She was working as a load planner, and he was a mechanic. They were married in April 1963. Lloyd was a devoted, loving husband and father to two daughters. They lived in Aurora, Colorado until 2023, when they moved to The Cedars Village in McPherson, Kansas. They were longtime members of First United Methodist Church in Aurora.

Some of Lloyd’s favorite childhood memories were of playing pickup ball games, building balsa wood airplanes, fishing trips with his family, and weekend drives to the mountains. His curiosity sometimes got him in trouble. When he was 5 or 6, he received a Radio Flyer wagon that he played with for a few hours. Desiring to know how the wheels worked, he disassembled them. He got a spanking that he remembered the rest of his life for taking his toy apart the same day he received it! Lloyd remembered as a child looking up in the sky and seeing early airplanes, which triggered his lifelong love of planes as an adult. Lloyd also told the story of how much he loved reading books. When he realized that he could borrow books from the school library, he checked out a book a day, read it at night, and then returned it the next day so he could get another one.

Some of the things that made Lloyd smile included jokes, making homemade vanilla ice cream, meeting new people, marrying Vera, and raising two girls.

Some of his favorite hobbies included:

• ~ Built a log cabin in the mountains near Grand Lake, Colorado with his dad and uncle before he married
• ~ organic gardening
• ~ fishing and fly-tying
• ~ woodworking
• ~ reading
• ~ card games – especially cribbage
• ~ harmonica & harmonica conventions
• ~ wine making
• ~ bee keeping
• ~ restoring a 1954 Mercury Monterey car
• ~ astronomy
• ~ attending cowboy poetry events
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Dad loved and supported his family in many ways. He worked hard and provided a stable home for Vera, Sandy, and Sue. He loved his parents and took his family to visit them every Sunday when he wasn’t at work. He would lend a hand with repairs and yard work. He enjoyed extended family gatherings at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, plus summer barbecues to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Playing games like checkers, Chinese checkers, rummy, Yahtzee, Monopoly, and cribbage with Vera and the girls was a life-long habit. After two of his sisters moved to Missouri, Lloyd and Vera took his mom to visit them several times. When Sandy and Sue were children, the family used airline passes to travel the US. They visited Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Boston, Orlando, the Hawaiian Islands, and family in Illinois.

Some of Lloyd's proudest family moments were his high school graduation, taking his mom to Hawaii and Boston on vacations, and his daughters’ college graduations.

Lloyd was preceded in death by his parents, Oliver and Eleanor Johnson, and sisters, Elaine Beston and Ardis Veik. He is survived by his wife, Vera Johnson; his sisters, Joan Kobilan of Denver, Colorado and Helen Parkin of Doniphan, Missouri; his daughters, Sandra (Mark) Hunter of McPherson, Kansas and Sue (Richard) Dekany of Arcadia, California; and his grandchildren, Cygnus Dekany of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Ryan Dekany of Arcadia, California.

A celebration of life service will be held at 2:00 PM, Thursday, August 6, 2026, at The Cedars Event Center with Rev. Andrew Conard officiating.  Military honors will be conducted by American Legion Post #24 Honor Guard.  To view a live stream broadcast of the service, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Memorials can be given to The Cedars Resident Assistance Fund in care of Stockham Family Funeral Home, 205 North Chestnut, McPherson, KS 67460.