Obituary of Roosevelt P Johnson

Roosevelt Phillip Johnson, 87, passed away on Saturday December 31, 2022 at 11:05 PM at Beth Israel Hospital where he died peacefully. He was born in Boyce, Louisiana on July 27, 1935 to Gus and Effie Johnson. Following the path of his mother, who moved to Boston in the 1950s for a better life, he also moved to the South End of Boston where he met his future bride-to-be. After a brief stint in the military he married Yvonne Smith of Washington DC, who affectionately nicknamed him “Rudy.” Similarly, she had also moved to Boston in the 1950s. They married in 1959 and soon moved to 18 Plant Court in Jamaica Plain, Mass where they had three children, Lisa Joy Johnson, Darren Gregory Johnson and Jeffrey Neil Johnson. In the late 1960s the family moved to 61 Elmont Street in Dorchester, MA. Roosevelt worked at RKO General, the company that owned local radio station WRKO AM and TV station WNAC Channel 7 from the 70’s into the 80’s, where he was a Data-Entry programmer. He loved working there where he was a standout employee and a star player on the company’s softball team. During the 80’s into the 90’s he worked various jobs including Citizen’s Bank and Lechmere Department Store. He loved his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in equal measure. Additionally: His lifelong passion was photography and he is remembered being seen with a camera around his neck. He loved taking pictures of his family and extended family at events, capturing many precious moments, and in later years extended that love of photography to experimenting with digital photography and various aspects of photoshop. He also loved music, and had eclectic tastes, collecting music of all genres and artists, in all formats from vinyl to cassettes to CDs. He also loved to “discover” new artists on YouTube, well into his golden years. His passion for music, listening to and collecting, was a love he passed onto his three children. He loved sports and was an avid baseball fan as well as player, but he also loved football, and basketball, whichever was currently in season. He also loved to solve puzzles, his favorite being his Rubik’s Cube, which in latter years he was rarely seen without. Amazingly, he could solve the puzzle in less than three minutes. He is survived by his wife Yvonne Johnson, his children, Lisa Taylor and husband Dennis, Darren Johnson and wife Michelle Williams, and Jeffrey Johnson; his grandchildren Joi Allen-Baaqee and husband Shakir, Erik Allen and wife Jessica, and Kristopher Taylor; and his great-grandchildren Tiffany Baaqee, Evan Baaqee, Alex Baaqee, Ryan Allen, Tristan Allen and Kellan Allen.