Great grandmother, longtime Claremont resident, volunteer, realtor

Jane Hinckley Johnson, a Claremont resident and Pomona College faculty wife from 1950 to 1976, died from natural causes at her assisted living home in Eugene, Oregon on April 17, nearly a month after turning 90. 

She was born in 1928 in San Francisco to attorney Theodore C. Hinckley and Eunice Platt Hinckley. Her brother Ted Hinckley, an early Claremont Men’s College (now Claremont McKenna College) graduate and professor at San Jose State University, described their childhood in his autobiography, War, Wings, and a Western Youth.

She lived in Pasadena, California until her 1950 marriage to Morton Colhoun Johnson. The couple had three children, Charles, Roderick and Margurite. After residing briefly on College Avenue and Arrow Highway, in Claremont, she and Mort lived at 357 West 10^th Street, then in 1962 moved to her husband’s childhood home at 470 West 11^th Street. From 1976 until 1998 the couple lived in Sonoma County, California, then moved to Eugene.

Ms. Johnson was a summer camp counselor and volunteered in campus activities such as Curtain Raisers for the Claremont Colleges’ Garrison Theater. She helped organize a 1965 farewell slumber party on the last night the Claremont Inn had overnight guests at its former home on the corner of College and Bonita Avenues.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona in 1971. She worked as a realtor for Claremont’s Curtis Real Estate as well as managing her family’s income properties on Bonita Avenue and 11^th Street. 

In Sonoma County, the Johnsons also rented out and managed a river house in Monte Rio and an apartment complex in Cotati. The couple was able to live at their house in Eugene from 1998 until a couple of months before Mort’s death in 2016.

Her husband of 66 years, Morton Colhoun Johnson, preceded her in death on November 2, 2016. 

She is survived by her children Charles E. Johnson, of West Linn, Oregon; Roderick C. Johnson, of Springfield, Oregon; and Margurite J. Cooney, of Eugene; two granddaughters; two great-granddaughters; a sister-in-law; four nieces and three nephews.