Johnny Herbert Roberson

Johnny Herbert Roberson “Papa”, passed away peacefully on Wednesday December 30th at the age of 84. Johnny was born on February 8th, 1936 in Jasper Tennessee to the parent of Roscoe and Irene Roberson and is one of four children, brother Robbie and sisters Bobbie and Opal.

Johnny at the age of 3 left Tennessee, with his Family because his father Rosco was hired to be a foreman on the Boulder Dam construction project and settled in the Lake Mead area. Johnny would make trips alone with his father back to Tennessee for family visits, because Rosco thought that by having a child with him it would make it easier to get rides, but most of the time they hopped freight trains. Rosco also worked on construction projects in the Central Valley, one being the Friant Dam.

Johnny attended Easterby Elementary and Roosevelt High school, he met the Love of his Life Loretta and his lifelong and best friend Don Irwin while in high school, he also got a job at the age of 14 at the Coca Cola bottling Company stacking bottles in the warehouse. Johnny and Loretta married on Valentines Day in 1955 and soon after he enrolled in a trade school for meat cutters and finished his High School diploma along with enlisting in the Navy Reserve.

Johnny and his new bride Loretta moved to Southern California where upon graduating from Trade school he became the youngest union apprentice meat cutter in LA at the time and was celebrated at a banquet in his honor. He then obtained a union assignment as meat cutter for the Alpha Beta food chain, and soon became the manager of the meat department at a very young age.

Johnny and Loretta returned to the Central Valley and he worked at “Continental” and then the “Foodland” as their meat department manager.

Johnny loved and resided in many locations one being a ten acre plot on Road 33 in Madera where he built a home and small ranch along with raising his two sons, Steven and Briant, in a healthy country environment where together they raised cattle and grew alfalfa.

Johnny always loved visiting the local Sierra Mountains and often referred to them as “The Piney Woods” and in the early seventies that love overwhelmed him so that he and his family sold the Madera ranch and built a three-story home in the “Shaver Springs” subdivision above Tollhouse.

Johnny retired from meat cutting and got his Real Estate License in the mid 1980’s and learned the ins and outs of property development and eventually sold the “Shaver Springs” home and bought a fourplex apartment complex and began his life as landlord and home builder. He bought several empty lots in established subdivision and built and sold many homes. Johnny eventually sold and traded his properties for a small grocery store business east of Fresno on Interstate 5 called “The Shop Stop” and soon after obtained another called “The Windmill Market” just a few miles south of the “Shop Stop” on Interstate 5, these would be the last of Johnny’s business ventures.

Johnny finally retired to his home in Fresno with his beloved wife Loretta and son Briant, where he loved being outdoors doing yardwork and woodworking projects and that love showed in everything he touched.

Johnny was a loving husband and father and was loved and admired by all that came in contact with him, no matter the length of that contact. His local “Home Depot” knew him by name and he’d be there when the doors opened to get supplies for his various weekly projects.

Johnny is survived by his loving wife Loretta, sons Briant and Steve, and his wife Cheryl, granddaughters Rachel and Miranda, sister Opal and may other beloved nieces and nephews, family members and friends. Johnny is proceeded in death by his parents Rosco and Irene, brother Robbie and sister Bobbie (Fong), nephews David and Michael (Burson), niece Karen (Brown)

A small private memorial graveside service will be held in his honor on Friday January 15th 2021 at 1pm in the Belmont Memorial Park.