Resort-style retirement communities in St. Louis.
Resort-style retirement communities in St. Louis.
Former Jefferson Countian Clyde “Skip” Johnson was looking for a way to give back to local residents and to keep his late wife’s memory alive.
Johnson believes the substantial donation (Johnson chose to not disclose the amount in this story) he made to Mercy Health Foundation Jefferson to create the Becky Johnson Memorial Fund accomplished both goals.
Johnson, 80, of Sunset Hills, said he and his wife, Florence Rebecca “Becky” Johnson were high school sweethearts who moved to Jefferson County in 1980.
Johnson ran several businesses in the county over the years, the most notable being Tiara Properties, a real estate development company.
“We built 15 to 20 developments all around the county,” Johnson said.
One of the reasons he and and Becky moved to Jefferson County, he said, was that she was interested in showing and breeding dogs.
“We needed more land than we had in St. Louis,” Johnson said. “I found some land in the Imperial area.”
Over the years, he said, the couple had several homes around the county, mostly in the developments he built.
Johnson and his wife were married for 58 years. After a six-year battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells, she died in March 2018.
“She was very strong,” Johnson said. “Unless you knew of her diagnosis, you never would have known. She always wanted to look nice, and she was able to hide it, even though at times she was in severe pain. Many people never knew what she was going through.”
But her husband knew. And he said he took notice of the care she received along the way, so when he was looking for a way to give back to Jefferson County, his longtime friend and business partner, Bill McKenna, a member of the Mercy Hospital Jefferson board, suggested a donation toward cancer efforts at the Crystal City hospital.
McKenna introduced Johnson to Andrew Held, executive director of Mercy Health Foundation Jefferson.
“He (Johnson) wanted to do something to help people with cancer,” Held said. “I immediately though of our nurse navigation program.”
Held said the nurse navigation program, which is a relatively new idea in cancer treatment, assigns a nurse to someone diagnosed with cancer and their family to help them negotiate the road through treatment.
“When you get that diagnosis, your thought is ‘What next? What do I do?’ The nurse helps give you answers,” Held said. “They come into your life at your darkest hour and help you make decisions, tell you that ‘I’m here for you.’ She helps you make appointments, helps you communicate with doctors and other caregivers, and sometimes, she’s just there to listen.”
Held said Mercy Hospital Jefferson has two nurse navigators, but he’d like to grow that number.
“They tell me that they handle 250 cases a year, which seems like a lot to me,” he said. “Ideally, I’d like to see one nurse navigator who would specialize in a single cancer diagnosis – lung cancer, colon cancer or breast cancer, for instance.”
The Becky Johnson Memorial Fund, which includes Johnson’s donation is designed to increase the number of nurse navigators.
Johnson said while his wife received excellent care during her battle, she didn’t benefit from a nurse navigator.
“She didn’t, but people in Jefferson County will be able to,” Johnson said.
“I wanted to do something in memory of Becky, and felt like this was an opportunity to give back to Jefferson County, which really was good to me for 35 years. If I can help the people of Jefferson County, I’m happy to have the chance to do so,”
Story by Steve Taylor for the West Side Leader