Eleanor Adell Zuppann Johnson

Eleanor (Ellie) Adell Zuppann Johnson, 88, died September 9, 2025, at 8:10 pm, with family at her side at the Covington in Orem, Utah.

(Ellie penned her own obituary years ahead, with amendments as life added experiences.)

She was born March 30, 1937, in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, first daughter of William Earl and Elma Irene Fitzgerald Zuppann. She married Richard Evans Reiser on June 12, 1957, in the Salt Lake Temple. They were divorced in 1982. She married Calvin Wasden Johnson March 13, 1990, in the Jordan River Temple. Their marriage was later solemnized in the Payson Utah Temple on July 27, 2016.

She was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and particularly enjoyed teaching children in Primary.

She attended elementary & secondary schools in Chicago and Highland Park, Illinois. She studied ballet and other dance forms in Chicago and performed at theatres in that city. She studied ballet with companies in the mid-west and western states while performing with a ballet company and later when operating her own ballet school for several years in Orem. She taught an hour of home school for her own children before school in the mornings, and multi-lessons after school in music, art, riding, sports, etc. She worked for several years as a Humane Society officer and a 4-H leader.

With the arrival of her last child, she turned to handicapped education and studied at BYU and at seminars and classes in American Fork, Salt Lake City, and California. An avid reader, she also self-taught gathering useful information on the teaching of her own handicapped child. She shared her daughter with school classes around the county to teach “normal” children to respect and understand physically and mentally challenged persons. After her child’s death, she worked at the State Training school through Alpine School district as a teacher’s aid. She also taught homemaking, self-care animal care social awareness and graces, gardening to severe and marginally handicapped youngsters at her farm home, dubbed “Potential Acres” Handicapped children were taught to cook, or to care for gardens & animals and then to share these with visiting care centers who came by bus loads. She also took children and their animal charges to care centers for the recreational programs for the elderly or infirm. They sold their crops to earn money for parade entries and developed self-esteem by doing for themselves. She was an advocate for handicapped students Teri and Jackie, helping to plan their curriculum and taking them home with her and out in the community, and over the years she cared for 19 foster children.

She is preceded in death by her beloved husband Calvin, who shared these activities, and her two youngest children, David Matthew, and Elizabeth Irene. She is survived by her five other children, Richard Jr. (Monica), Stephen (Debbie), William (Lisa), Alan (Lauren), Maria (Tim), and her many grandchildren and great grandchildren. Survivors include two sisters Carolyn (Don) and Jeanine (Hal); beloved members of her husband’s family; step-children Luren (Linda), Karen, Christy, Marlan (Diana), Jerry, Patty, Sandy; and very special foster children Aron, Heather, Patrice, Anthony, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Wendy.

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