Rebecca Selle Johanson

REBECCA Selle Johanson was born on October 10, 1950 in Hong Kong to the parents Elizabeth and Earl Albert Selle. When she was four years old her mother returned to her family and left Hong Kong and returned to Providence, RI. The Selle family lives there to this day. Rebecca grew up on Brown Hill in Providence RI. She attended the Lincoln School in Providence RI where her uncle, Ted Whitford, taught French and she made dear lifelong friends there.

After school she briefly tried to be a welder before deciding to move out to Western Colorado. She settled upon an area called the North Fork Valley and met some wonderful people who continue to love her. In 1975 she opened a store called Something Fine in Hotchkiss, CO that sold clothing, jewelry and small gifts. In the decade that she ran her store it became a fixture in the valley.

In 1983 she met Gary Johanson, a local cabinet maker, carpenter and artist who she fell madly in love with. They were married in 1985.

In 1987 they left the North Fork Valley for the East Coast, living first in Framingham briefly before settling into Northboro, MA. Living this close allowed more time with mother, Elizabeth Selle.

In 1989 she returned to CO, this time to Grand Junction.

In Grand Junction she has worked at the small business incubator since 1998 and retired this past year. The community that she nurtured at the incubator was a second family to Rebecca. Watching new businesses find their way and grow was like her love of gardening.

She was always kind and charitable and any donation you’d like to give, to an organization and cause you care for, would be an appropriate remembrance in these needing times. In gratitude, the family requests that rather than sending flowers, the joys of blooms are best expressed to remember Rebecca, a lover of all things gardening, by choosing and planting a special plant for yourself in the coming season. Rebecca would want you to nurture and see your own flowers grow.

She is survived by her brother Terrance Selle, sons, Anders Ross Johanson, Jacob Benjamin Johanson, Oscar Maxwell Johanson; daughters Pia Louise Johanson and Anna-Lisa Johanson; grandsons Nicholas Johanson and Evan James Rikhye; and granddaughters Sheela Louise Rikhye and Mira Elizabeth Rikhye. She had two great grandchildren.