“He was a great man, a loving husband,” she said about her 74-year-old husband who died months after a car crash. “He never gave up either. He always said he didn’t want to disappoint me.”
Mission accomplished, Charles “Ron” Johnson.
Now, for the first time in more than five decades, Judy Johnson is alone, though she has many friends from her years teaching in the Middletown City Schools District and through her husband who never met a stranger.
When asked what she misses the most about her husband, Johnson quickly said: “His love. He always cared for me and provided anything I wanted.”
They met while playing foosball at Verity Lodge on the Miami University Middletown campus.
He transferred to the Oxford campus in the fall of 1970, and she joined him in the winter quarter of 1971. They both earned degrees from Miami and were married on Aug. 26, 1972, culminating another Miami Merger.
Their lives were turned upside down on Sept. 13, 1979, when Johnson was driving from his then-home near Jacksonburg to a Middletown bowling alley. He lost control of his 1971 Gremlin on a rain-slickened road. The car slid left of the center line and struck a pickup truck head-on.
His spinal cord was severed, fracturing his C6 vertebra and dislocating his C7. Johnson spent several months in hospitals, including Middletown Regional Hospital and Good Samaritan in Cincinnati. He then spent six months rehabbing at Dodd Hall, a branch of the Ohio State University Hospital.
Throughout his lengthy rehabilitation, Judy, then a Middletown school teacher, made weekend drives to Columbus.
As I helped Ron last year write his self-published autobiography, “Begin Again,” I remember him saying that when someone who is married becomes a quadriplegic, their marriage almost always ends in divorce.
That wasn’t the case with the Johnsons.
“She loved me before the accident and she loved me even more after the accident,” Ron told me during one of our many weekly meetings to discuss the book. “She just never left me. That’s love.”
Some 3-1/2 years after his wreck, he returned to work at then-Armco/AK Steel, which is now Cleveland Cliffs, and worked for 29 years before retiring.
It would have been easier for him to take disability after the crash. But that wasn’t his style.
“I wanted to work,” he told me. “Why stay home when I can work and be a productive citizen.”
Ron was quite the character. An accountant, he kept a spread sheet on his computer that chronicled his daily activities. Doctor appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, social activities and when bills were due.
When they went to see a live show, whether at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati or LaComedia in Springboro, Ron kept track of his seat location and if he enjoyed the show.
He was on the first-name basis with the manager at the hotel they stayed in Gatlinburg, one of their favorite vacation destinations. And he also knew the parking attendant who worked the reserved handicapped area at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington.
He treated everyone the same and always encouraged them to pose for pictures with them.
“I love people,” he told me when I asked about the photos.
He also loved to travel, and he always was behind the wheel. His van was equipped so Ron could sit in his motorized wheelchair that locked into place and drive.
Before one of their trips to Gatlinburg, I loaded their van because Judy didn’t feel well. Before I started, Ron handed me a sheet of paper with a diagram of the van and where to place every piece of luggage and medical supplies.
I followed the instructions and everything fit. The last thing I placed in the back of the van was a metal folding chair.
When I asked why they were taking a chair on vacation, Ron told me if something happened to him, Judy would have to sit in the chair to drive the van.
Then on Nov. 3, 2024, 26 years after he was left paralyzed, the Johnsons were involved in another serious crash at the corner of Coles Road and Dixie Highway, just a few miles from their Middletown home.
It was a Sunday evening, and as they did every Sunday, the Johnsons made plans to have dinner at the Rusty Bucket Restaurant and Tavern in Liberty Center.
But they never arrived.
They were driving south on Dixie Highway when the red light turned green, but another vehicle didn’t stop and hit Johnson’s van. The driver of the pickup truck, David Bengal, 59, of Middletown, was charged with OVI and right of way offenses, according to the crash report.
The report listed the injuries as minor.
Ron was transported to Atrium Medical Center where he was evaluated and released. Later that night, he woke up and told his wife: “I can’t breathe.”
That was his last night at home.
He went through extensive rehabilitation, but he died on Feb. 13, 2025 at Kettering Health Miamisburg.
Judy arrived at the hospital in time to watch her husband take his last breath.
She always thought her husband would recover from the crash and drive them on more vacations, more adventures, make more memories.
“He always fought back and got well,” she said.
There was a pause on the phone.
Then she added: “He lost his strength.”
RON JOHNSON’S FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS
Visitation from 1-2 p.m. Feb. 23 at Monroe United Methodist Church, followed by the funeral service at 2 p.m. led by Pastor Jeff Motter. Burial at Woodside Cemetery, Middletown.
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