1941
Dr.
2017
Dr. Jean Johnson
August 6, 1941 — April 29, 2017
Dr. Jean E. Johnson, age 75, of Ripon, WI, died peacefully on Saturday, April 29, 2017, at her home with her family at her side.
Jean was born on August 6, 1941, in St. Louis, MO, the daughter of Dale and Helen (Bryan) Johnson. She graduated from Greendale High School in Greendale, WI.
She studied pre-med at Oberlin College, where she met and married fellow pre-med student Robert
House. She received her medicine degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine at a time when only 6% of the students were women. When daughter Laurie and son Dan were born during medical school, Jean told a friend that “medical school is actually pretty easy, you do a household chore and read a medical book while holding the baby.”
Bob and Jean searched for the perfect town to raise a family and practice medicine…and chose Ripon, where they worked for years as the Ripon College physicians. During her long and fulfilling career in family practice, Jean treated thousands of patients of all ages and delivered hundreds of babies. Some she treated from birth through marriage and then through childbirth of their own.
Jean’s love of skiing, canoeing and nature was infectious. She led countless canoeing and camping adventures with her children and their friends and she passed that love on to both her children, who continue the tradition in their own families.
Jean remarried in 1985 to Harry Heileman, a high school friend from Hales Corners. The two embarked on many adventures, often involving canoes and whitewater. Harry says “life with Jean was like live performance” – one that couldn’t often be captured in a photographs.
An avid reader, Jean read medical journals, political texts and science fiction with equal voracity. She could often be seen in her yard eating lunch, reading a book and watering the flowers. Jean had a genuine green thumb. Her yard was festooned in flowers from April to November thanks to nightly covering of every plant for frost protection.
In retirement, Jean travelled frequently, continuing to canoe even after she could not walk, visiting grandchildren, political conferences and touring Alaska. She made two long trips to rural New Zealand to provide medical care in an underserved community there.
Jean’s lifelong interest in social justice found an outlet in the American Civil Liberties Union (State President), the League of Women Voters (President) and the Sierra Club, among others. She was very proud of helping found the Prairie Lakes Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, where she found deep kinship with fellow spiritual and intellectual seekers.
Jean is survived by her husband, Harry; daughter, Laurie House of Brooklyn, NY; son, Dan House of Essex Junction, VT; brothers, Kim Johnson of Greendale, WI, Glenn, and Bryan Johnson both of Marengo, WI; grandchildren, Wren and Bryan House of Essex Junction, WI, and Liam Powers of Brooklyn, NY. She is preceded in death by her parents.
A celebration of Jean’s life will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 28, 2017, at First Congregational Church, 220 Ransom St., Ripon, WI, 54971. A reception will follow at the church. In lieu of flowers memorials in her name may be given to the LWV Upper Mississippi River Region ILO, a consortium of organizations dedicated to the health of the waters in the upper Mississippi River basin – a multi-state area, Ellen Rosborough, P.O. Box 258106, Madison, WI 53725-8106 OR to Prairie Lakes Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Pluuf, 315 Eureka St., P.O. Box 39, Ripon, WI 54971.
Please visit www.butzinmarchant.com to send on-line condolences.
Jean was born on August 6, 1941, in St. Louis, MO, the daughter of Dale and Helen (Bryan) Johnson. She graduated from Greendale High School in Greendale, WI.
She studied pre-med at Oberlin College, where she met and married fellow pre-med student Robert
House. She received her medicine degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine at a time when only 6% of the students were women. When daughter Laurie and son Dan were born during medical school, Jean told a friend that “medical school is actually pretty easy, you do a household chore and read a medical book while holding the baby.”
Bob and Jean searched for the perfect town to raise a family and practice medicine…and chose Ripon, where they worked for years as the Ripon College physicians. During her long and fulfilling career in family practice, Jean treated thousands of patients of all ages and delivered hundreds of babies. Some she treated from birth through marriage and then through childbirth of their own.
Jean’s love of skiing, canoeing and nature was infectious. She led countless canoeing and camping adventures with her children and their friends and she passed that love on to both her children, who continue the tradition in their own families.
Jean remarried in 1985 to Harry Heileman, a high school friend from Hales Corners. The two embarked on many adventures, often involving canoes and whitewater. Harry says “life with Jean was like live performance” – one that couldn’t often be captured in a photographs.
An avid reader, Jean read medical journals, political texts and science fiction with equal voracity. She could often be seen in her yard eating lunch, reading a book and watering the flowers. Jean had a genuine green thumb. Her yard was festooned in flowers from April to November thanks to nightly covering of every plant for frost protection.
In retirement, Jean travelled frequently, continuing to canoe even after she could not walk, visiting grandchildren, political conferences and touring Alaska. She made two long trips to rural New Zealand to provide medical care in an underserved community there.
Jean’s lifelong interest in social justice found an outlet in the American Civil Liberties Union (State President), the League of Women Voters (President) and the Sierra Club, among others. She was very proud of helping found the Prairie Lakes Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, where she found deep kinship with fellow spiritual and intellectual seekers.
Jean is survived by her husband, Harry; daughter, Laurie House of Brooklyn, NY; son, Dan House of Essex Junction, VT; brothers, Kim Johnson of Greendale, WI, Glenn, and Bryan Johnson both of Marengo, WI; grandchildren, Wren and Bryan House of Essex Junction, WI, and Liam Powers of Brooklyn, NY. She is preceded in death by her parents.
A celebration of Jean’s life will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 28, 2017, at First Congregational Church, 220 Ransom St., Ripon, WI, 54971. A reception will follow at the church. In lieu of flowers memorials in her name may be given to the LWV Upper Mississippi River Region ILO, a consortium of organizations dedicated to the health of the waters in the upper Mississippi River basin – a multi-state area, Ellen Rosborough, P.O. Box 258106, Madison, WI 53725-8106 OR to Prairie Lakes Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Pluuf, 315 Eureka St., P.O. Box 39, Ripon, WI 54971.
Please visit www.butzinmarchant.com to send on-line condolences.
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Dr. Jean Johnson, please visit our flower store.
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