Gail Johnson White passed away on December 3, 2009 after a five year battle with Alzheimer's Disease.  Gail was born in Minnesota and attended St. Louis Park Schools from kindergarten and elementary grades and all through high school.  She was a playmate for many of us who were her friends from the "north side" of St. Louis Park.  Classmates like Jim Leebens, Nancy Foss, Mike Swenberger, Roger Johnson, Bruce Elliasen, Allan Moran, John Meyers all knew Gail Johnson very well.  They were all "North Siders", and loved every minute of it!

Gail lived much of her middle years on Sanibel Island, Florida; later she moved to Roswell, Georgia, in 1999, and remained there until her death.  She was a successful business woman and educator, a great supporter of the arts, as well as an accomplished artist herself.  For a time Gail ran a Sylvan Learning Center in Georgia, and applied her considerable skills as a teacher in helping youngsters learn to improve their reading and other skills. 

She was the daughter of O. William Johnson (a painter by trade) and Caroline Johnson.  She is survived by her children, Christopher Stone, and Melanie Salcedo, and her grandchildren, Sofie, Maymay, and Kai.  She is also survived by her older sister Carol Fackler, and her younger sister Catherine (Katy) Hallberg [of the St. Louis Park Class of 1960], as well as their families, and by her husband of 8 years, Mike White.  Gail did have a child who died before her.  Joshua was her second child.  He had Downs Syndrome and after a month they discovered that he had a heart defect which ended his young life.  When Joshua died Gail started doing volunteer work for MARC, the Minnesota Association for Retarded Children.  Gail was very happy that she had given birth to three children.

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Immediately after high school, Gail Johnson went to the University of Minnesota where she graduated with honors with a degree in elementary education and art.  She taught the primary grades in the Robbinsdale School District for about six years.  During that time she worked with Karen Rogers to help set up one of the early Gifted Education programs in the state of Minnesota.

When Gail's children were young she moved her family to Sanilbel Island, Florida, where she owned and managed a number of very successful businesses over the years.  Her favorite and most long lasting shop was The Olde House Shoppe which became very well known for its elegant ladies clothing and wonderful service.

Unfortunately, Gail's health took a beating from the environmental impact of chemicals from The Olde House Shoppe, which was the oldest building on the island, and the formaldehyde that was released when ironing the clothing that she bought from Asian countries.  A broken neck in a car accident further impacted her health and all of these negative influences ultimately led to Alzheimer's Disease, from which she died five years later.

Gail had three wonderful children and three grandchildren which were the delight of her life and a husband of eight years who supported her through her illness and loved her to the end.

The following is a tribute to Gail Johnson, written by her niece, Amy Hallberg; it sums up the feelings toward Gail that is felt by all her relatives:

   "My Auntie Gail was larger than life.  She was her father's child, an artist and philosopher.  She had, like her mother, a talent for cultivating beauty and a love of poetry.  She laughed with more abandon, loved more deeply, and dreamed bigger than most people ever dare to do.  A trip to anywhere with my Auntie Gail was an occasion for adventure.  Gail did not fear death and she walked hand in hand with heartbreak and loneliness many times in her life.  I believe she also knew more joy and lived more authentically because of her fearless, persistent, questioning pursuit of honesty, wherever it might lead her.

Gail was an everyday Dorothy Parker with a discerning eye and a wickedly brilliant flair for stating the truth.  She told me that I should not think too hard about what I ate but instead assume something terrible had happened to my food -- and eat anyway.  She told me that you could look a person in the eye and say anything -- anything -- as long as you said it with a smile on your face and sweetness in your voice.  Gail could tell a woman not to buy a dress because it made her look bad -- and the woman would come away grateful, feeling the love behind the honest assessment.  She'd also come away with a dress that actually did look fabulous and a gorgeous necklace to complete the outfit.

Gail was a Floridian Isabell Allende, keeper of the stories that you could never quite believe, though Gail always told it as she saw it.  Gail lived life in technicolor magic realism, on a tropical island with parrots and cats and big wooden rocking horses.  There were fanciful dreams and hints of ghosts and mysterious coincidences set against the backdrop of her very real life. -- fascinating and vibrant stories that always made me marvel -- did these things only happen to my remarkable Auntie Gail, or did other people simply never stop to open their eyes and see the wonder around them?  But Gail was Dona Quixote, open to considering the possibility in her dreams.  When one dream played itself out, she always had a new and better dream to follow, always more interesting than the last, always inspired by new and wonderful visions of love, truth and beauty.

As a child, I idolized my Auntie Gail, impatiently anticipating visits with her and treasuring the excitement she brought to my life.  As an adult, she became my dear friend.  We talked for hours on the phone about books that spoke the truth and the deeper truths we had discovered in real life.  She spoke passionately and with deepest pride about her children and later her grandchildren, and through her I came to better understand my grandparents, my parents and my own place in the world.  I didn't kid myself -- I know that sometimes she called me because she couldn't reach my mom, her beloved baby sister.  But I also know this: Gail saw me.  Really saw me and believed in me.  And she never asked me to be anything other than the most genuine version of the person I am meant to be.  And she loved me and in turn shared glimpses of her deepest self with me.  And I adored her.  And I always, always will."