Deceased June 28, 2005

View alumni profile (log in required)
Read obituary

 In Memory

Gale Johnson died at the age of 77 on June 28, 2005, in Roanoke, VA after a recurrent battle with a pulmonary infection and severe arthritis.

Born in Norwood, MA, Gale spent most of his early years in the town of Amherst, where his father (and mine) served the College as Comptroller from1933 to his own death in 1959.  Gale attended Deerfield Academy from 1944 to 1947.  He entered Amherst in the fall of 1947 but left the College at the end of his first year.  After working, mainly in sales, in southern New England, he was called up as a member of the Massachusetts National Guard for service during the Korean War and was stationed for some time in Japan. 

After his army service, he moved to the New York City and northern New Jersey area, where he married Bonnie Sands in 1960 and settled in Watchung, NJ.  At this point Gale was working in sales for Allstate Life in Bridgewater, NJ, and resolved to re-career as an insurance underwriter.  He enrolled in the Business Administration program at the Univ. of Massachusetts in Amherst, received his BBA in 1962, earned his certification as an underwriter, returned to Allstate and became an underwriting analyst.  Gale remained with Allstate and in Watchung until his retirement in 1993.  Two children were born in due time, a daughter Karin, now Mrs. Matthew Pinto of Basking Ridge, NJ, and a son, Kenneth, now in Danville, CA.  Upon Gale’s retirement, he and Bonnie moved to a home they had planned and built by Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta, VA.

In both Watchung and Moneta, Gale was active in his community.  He participated in Little League and Boy Scouts with his son.  He was an active member in the Lions Club and Optimist International, serving as treasurer for his local branch of each.  He was on the board of directors of the Fair Plan of the State of New Jersey, on the governing board of the New Jersey Automobile Insurance Plan and on the board of directors of the New Jersey Underwriting Association.  In a memorial service at Wilson Memorial Church in Watchung, the pastor recalled with great appreciation Gale’s calm and wise service as president of the church’s board of trustees during a difficult period.

Gale was a person of many interests and talents—an avid fisherman, photographer and licensed pilot in his youth; a woodworker who could make his own furniture and remodel his home; a lover of all vehicles powered by gas engines, from the Taylor Cub of his youth to the big, open motorboat he delighted to navigate around the vast reaches of Smith Mountain Lake.  He was irreversibly Republican, universally sociable and at pivotal points in his life, notably courageous.  It’s difficult to say what influence his one year at the College had on him, but the College surrounded him throughout his childhood and youth.  The neighbors were the families of such faculty as Scott Porter, Warren Green, Ben Ziegler and Gail Kennedy.  Gale remembered the College fondly, attending a reunion weekend in 1991 and an Amherst event in Washington, DC, in 2000.

Alan Johnson ’53