Ruth Valbracht Failing Johnson

Ruth Valbracht Failing Johnson - Born June 27, 1914 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, a Lutheran minister, was in seminary until she was two. The family then lived in Syracuse and Anderson, Indiana. When she was six, the family returned to Chicago, where she attended grade school and Roosevelt High School. After graduating in 1931, she attended two junior colleges in Chicago and then Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio; both parents had gone there. She worked for the WPA as a clerk for six months after graduation. She married Larry Failing, student at Wittenberg’s Hamma Seminary, November 30, 1935. Daughter Charlotte was born in 1938 in Jamaica, New York, during Rev. Failing’s second pastorate, in Springfield Gardens, New York. While Larry served as a navy chaplain in WWII, she moved with Charlotte from New York to Chicago to New Orleans to Chicago to Glendale, California. After the war Larry began a Lutheran parish in Burbank, California. Ruth helped him there, including playing the organ, for 40 years. After Charlotte graduated from high school, Ruth worked as a secretary at Lockheed Aircraft, did graduate work, and taught junior and high school English and social studies. Travels in the 60’s enriched her classes; she visited Charlotte, who was teaching in Hong Kong, twice. They traveled to Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan the first trip and came home via India, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, the Holy Land, Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, and England the second trip. After retiring, in the 70’s Ruth and Larry traveled around the country in an RV, visiting friends and relatives and exploring many of the nation’s natural treasures, including a hike into the Grand Canyon. Larry died in October of 1983. In retirement he had assisted at several churches, including First Lutheran, Glendale, where members Reg Johnson and wife Clara became friends. Larry and Clara died in the same week; Reg and Ruth got together and eventually married on February 14, 1993. The Johnson’s became a second family to her. When Reg died in 1995, Ruth moved to Austin to be near Charlotte. She lived in Westminster Manor and attended First English Lutheran Church, making a good number of friends in both places. Granddaughter Denise married Ariel Dulitzky in 1998; to her delight she became a great-grandmother of Leo and Lucas. She died February 26 at age 92, leaving behind daughter Charlotte and her family, stepson Don Johnson and his family, sisters-in-law Jean and Lois Valbracht and loving nieces and nephews. A funeral service will be held at First English Lutheran Church, 30th and Whitis, Friday, March 2nd at 2 pm. A graveside service will be held in California. In lieu of flowers, Ruth requested donations to ELCA World Hunger. Obituary and guestbook online at wcfish.com