Esther Johnson

Esther Benedict Johnson left this Earth to walk in the sunshine on May 5, 2017 in Gulf Breeze, Florida. She was 98.

Born on August 3, 1918 in Oxford, New York to Erma Blanche (Sherwood ) Benedict and Wayne Gilbert Benedict, Esther resided for most of her life in Lakeland, FL. She lived there with her husband of 61 years, Jack Medlock Johnson, who died in 2001.
Esther is survived by her younger brother, Daniel Benedict (Edith) in Newark, NY and by her sons, Robert Johnson (Jaclyn) in Gulf Breeze, and Paul Johnson (Paula) in Lakeland ; grandsons Travis and Jack Johnson in Lakeland ; Spencer Johnson in Burlington, NC ; and great-grandson Liam Johnson in Lakeland.
She also leaves behind many nephews and nieces, including her namesake Esther Benedict, a sculptor in Pipe Creek, Texas.

Active at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church in Lakeland for more than four decades, Esther was a leader among the women of the congregation. She occasionally hosted coffee get-togethers on Sunday night after church and can be remembered frying a big batch of donuts while she made chocolate and vanilla icing that was gooey and oh-so-good.
She worked as a practical nurse for several years in Lakeland before her children were born. After that she worked mostly in the home although she also was a part-time caregiver to an older couple in the neighborhood of the house that she and Jack owned on North Vermont Avenue.
Gentle and sentimental, she loved Christmas mornings, feeding the ducks and swans at Lake Morton in Lakeland, lunches with her late friend Ruth Davidson at Maas Brothers in downtown Lakeland and reminiscing with childhood pal Eleanor Frederick, now living in Winter Haven, FL.
Esther loved to receive greeting cards of all sorts and collected them from Christmas, birthdays and Mother's Day. A future service is being planned and Esther will rest by her late husband at Lakeland Memorial Gardens.

Perhaps there can be nothing better to be said of any of us than is true of Esther: She never made an enemy in this world.
And surely after her 98 years here, she has many friends and loved ones.