David Kent Johnson

YARMOUTH – David Kent Johnson died the morning of Jan. 12, 2023, at Bay Square Yarmouth.

Kent was conceived in Roswell, New Mexico, early in 1948 but his parents, Dr. Jed and Martha, moved to Marseilles, Illinois, before he was born in October. Kent grew up in Marseilles, second of five children. He was educated in town schools and graduated first in his class at Marseilles High School in 1966. Kent then studied piano performance at Indiana University (Bloomington) and graduated from IU in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Johnson moved to San Francisco in 1971 and took a job at Bank of America where he worked in Human Resources and Information Technology for over 30 years. He worked in San Francisco until 1986 when his offices moved to Concord in San Francisco’s East Bay. Johnson retired from Bank of America in 2004 and moved back to Illinois to be with Martha after Dr. Jed died. While he was there, he painted the family home and digitalized his father’s slide collection.

He moved his mother to Louisiana in 2006 and moved himself to Yarmouth, Maine, in 2007 where he lived out the last years of his life. His chief company in retirement were a few good friends, old movies, and Killer Sudoku puzzles. The puzzles were his meditation, and he loved them because they always had a solution. Johnson became acquainted with the writings of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and used them for daily guidance in his last years.

As a young man, Kent lived a gypsy life in San Francisco and became overly fond of alcohol. He gave up drinking in his early 40s. One of Kent’s favorite sayings was: “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”

Johnson was preceded in death by his parents, his brother Brooks, and his sister-in-law Sue Clark-Johnson. He is survived by brother Mark of Grand Junction, Colo., sister Rebecca (Larry) of Novato, Calif., and brother Jed (Penny) of Louisville, Ky., and by other beloved friends and family in southern Maine, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and California.

Kent’s body will be cremated. No public funeral is planned.

If you want to do something special to remember Kent, watch “The 39 Steps” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)

or eat a piece of pecan pie.