Julian Kenneth Johnson

Julian Kenneth Johnson, 90, entered into rest on June 6, 2016 in Houston. Visitation and funeral services begin at 1:00 P.M., Saturday, June 11, 2016 at Memorial Funeral Chapel in College Station. Interment will follow at Memorial Cemetery of College Station, where he will lie beside his beloved Elizabeth.

Kenneth was born September 18, 1925 in Emory, Texas, the son of Efrin Alto and Clemmie (Slatter) Johnson. He married Elizabeth Magrill DeFord of Sulphur Springs on July 22, 1950. He and Elizabeth had four children: Robert, Martha Jane, Susan, and James.

Kenneth Johnson enlisted in the Army in 1943. He served in the Aleutian Islands as an air defense artilleryman in the Pacific theater and after the war finished his Army service with a tour in Italy.

After his military service he went to East Texas State University and received a degree in economics. During the 1950s he began work at Red River Arsenal as a civil service employee. He was offered an opportunity for graduate education in 1967, and along with wife and four children, moved to Fairborn, Ohio where in 1968 he received a Master's Degree in Logistics from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

In 1970, after serving his country both in war and peace, and with more than 20 years in the civil service system, he retired in San Antonio, Texas to work as a farmer and real estate agent. His hard work and pride in working with the land and cattle on his Sandy Land farm was rewarded in 1977 when the Soil and Water Conservation Authority named him the Conservation Farmer of the Year for the Alamo District.

After sending all of their children through the Texas A&M University System, Kenneth and Elizabeth moved to College Station in 1995 and enjoyed many years of retired life there, with their home a frequent location for holiday gatherings of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Kenneth had a life-long love of travel, and over the years traveled to most of the states in the union as well as the countries of Canada, Australia, Japan, Turkey and most of the countries in Latin America and Europe.

He was preceded in death by a grandson, Calvin Kenneth Johnson and his wife of 61 years, Elizabeth.

Survivors include children, Robert Kenneth Johnson and his wife Berna Johnson of Harker Heights, Texas; Martha Jane (Johnson) Jarrett and her husband Victor Jarrett of Monterey, California; Susan Elizabeth Johnson of Houston, Texas; James Lawrence Johnson and his wife Marianne (Gerber) Johnson of St. Martin, Switzerland; grandchildren, Robert “Kurt” Johnson and his wife Michelle (Naumann) Johnson; Richard James Johnson and his wife Crystal (Jarrell) Johnson; Sarah (Jarrett) Cummins and her husband Daniel Cummins; Bernadette Johnson; great grandchildren, Alexander Johnson, William Johnson, Julia Elizabeth Johnson, Mary Elise Cummins, Clark James Johnson, and Louise Lelia Cummins.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Disabled American Veterans or the Salvation Army.

Condolences can be made at www.memorialfuneralchapel.com