JOHNSON, Esther Chaney
Esther Chaney Johnson passed away last weekend following a life filled with guiding young people in Middletown, from Cub Scouts to the thousands of students who passed through the Middletown High School
library. She was 92.
She was born in Lockland, Ohio, and moved to Middletown as a young girl, graduating from Middletown High School in 1947. She was the first in her family to go to college, earning a bachelor's degree in math and social studies from Miami University, in Oxford. Years later, she would add a master's in media studies from Xavier University, driving to night classes after a day of work and tending to three young boys.
Esther worked in metallurgical research at Armco early in her career, before she and her late husband, Fred, moved to Los Angeles, where she worked as a substitute teacher in the 1950s. She substituted in Middletown City Schools in the 1970s and '80s and found a home in the school system, working full time as a librarian at MHS for more than a decade before
retiring in the '90s. She devoted countless hours to volunteer service in Middletown: Scouts, PTAs, MHS athletics boosters and band boosters, the AAUW book fair, the city board of heating examiners and appeals and the First United Methodist Church, where she remained a member for more than 60 years.
Esther is survived by two sons, Reuben, and his wife, Olga, of Alexandria, Va.; and Mark, and his wife, Virginia, of Davidson, North Carolina; as well as three grandchildren. Her husband, Fred, and sons, Timothy and Matthew, pre-deceased her. She was the daughter of the late James R. and Iva K. Chaney and sister to the late Ruth Henderson, of Kankakee, Ill.
Visitation Services in the care of Baker-Stevens-Parramore Funeral Home are planned for Saturday, February 12, 2022, at 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. at the First United Methodist Church.
Funeral Services will follow at 11:00 a.m. Interment will be at Woodside Cemetery. Esther loved dogs and owned several throughout her life, and friends are encouraged to donate to the Butler County Humane Society in lieu of flowers.