In Memoriam
Reese Charles "Chuck" Johnson
Rees Charles “Chuck” Johnson died on September 5, 2013 at his home in Portland, OR.
Chuck Johnson
1963 graduation
Chuck grew up in Tigard, OR, a suburb of Portland, where his father was an attorney and state senator, and graduated from Tigard High School in 1955.
Chuck was in the United States Army from 1955 to 1959, and attended the Army Language School, where he excelled in Russian.
Chuck graduated from Yale College in 1963, and from Yale Law School in 1966. After graduation, he returned to Portland and established a successful law practice, specializing in wills and estate planning (he authored the Oregon Wills and Estate Planning Handbook).
Chuck was fond of spending time with his family, hiking, running, and visiting the Oregon coast.
He is survived by his wife, Ginger Gormley, his son Peter and daughter Sarah, a granddaughter, Olivia, a sister, Carol, and several nieces and nephews.
Martin Wand remembers Chuck as follows:
“Chuck was an extremely intelligent person, but was also very quiet and modest, so that it was difficult to learn about his many interests and accomplishments. My wife Karen and I had the honor of introducing Chuck to his wife, Ginger Gormley. Ginger, a nurse, and Karen, a music teacher, lived in the same apartment building in New Haven when Chuck and I were in law school and medical school, respectively. They married in 1966, the same year as we did, and had a wonderfully loving and supportive marriage for almost 47 years.
In 2005 Chuck was diagnosed with a particularly fulminant form of Parkinson’s Disease. As might be expected of Chuck, when offered to enroll in a trial of a new medication for Parkinson’s, knowing that he had an equal chance of being given a placebo, he was eager and willing to help in a study that could benefit other patients with Parkinson’s. Ginger told us that to the very end he maintained his intellectual curiosity to learn if this new treatment was proving to be beneficial, tragically something he never found out.”