May your priests be clothed with your righteousness; may your faithful people sing for joy. - Psalm 132:9 

Bernard “Barney” Matthew Johnson passed into the next life on November 27, surrounded by many of his children, grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Barney was the second child of eight children born to Arthur John Johnson and Irene Cecelia McLaughlin. He was born on September 29, 1926, in St. Paul, MN and baptized into the Catholic faith at the Cathedral of St. Paul. In the 1930s, he and his family moved to Phillips, WI where he went to school for six years before joining the Divine Word Missionaries. On August 15, 1954, he was ordained a priest for this order at St. Mary’s Missionary Seminary in Techny, IL. He celebrated his first Mass at Immaculate Conception Church, Milwaukee, WI, on August 22, 1954. In 1955 he moved to Papua New Guinea to serve as a missionary priest for the next 12 years. He celebrated his last Mass on November 2, 1967. Barney met Barbara Anne Mills, a volunteer with the Australian Corp, in New Guinea. Barney and Barbara were married on April 15, 1969. They moved to Wisconsin in the same year and settled on a farm in Soldiers Grove. 

Barney will be remembered as a loving father and husband, a master carpenter who touched countless lives through his talent for woodcraft, and a man who enjoyed the quiet life of his homestead—he especially looked forward to the first signs of spring to signal the start of the gardening season. He took proper pride in the sizeable vegetable garden which he tended, finding joy in God’s creation, whether in the weeds to be picked or the produce to be harvested. His potato and garlic harvests will be particularly missed. Barbara and Barney were pioneers in the Natural Family Planning movement in the LaCrosse Diocese of Wisconsin. They spent countless hours traveling and teaching numerous couples the scientific natural method of family planning, influencing and transforming lives through their witness of the Catholic faith and sharing its beauty and truth. Barney and Barbara were also founding members of the Institute of St. Joseph, a Public Association of the Faithful, in the diocese of LaCrosse. Barney loved his faith and thanked God everyday that he and Barbara were blessed with the ability to pass on this love to their children. He considered himself wealthy with his Catholic faith and his abundance of family and friends. 

Barney is survived by four of his siblings, Sister Marion Johnson, RSM, Sister Margaret Johnson, RSM, Patricia (Louis) New, and Mary Therese (Bruce) Waltersdorf and sister-in-law, Mary Ursula (James) Johnson. He is also survived by six of his seven children, Terry (Kath) Gleeson, Cecilia (Joseph) O’Brien, Elizabeth (Michael) Gallagher, Katherine (Andrew) Seibert, Canisius Johnson, and Marguerite (Christopher) Carstens, his wife’s daughter, Sandra (Paul) Harvey, and Christine Lemley-Woods and Alicia Bezold who were as close as daughters. Barney leaves behind many grandchildren, Marissa, Laya and Ernie (Harvey), Beth, Brody, and Ethan (Gleeson), Barbara (Matthew) Curley, Seamus (Margaret) O’Brien, Bernadette (Michael) Gribowskas, Norah, Liam, Anastasia, Mara Naomi, Lucy and Claudia (O’Brien), Benedict, Samuel, Rosemary, William, Irene, and Jane (Gallagher), Anthony, Hazel, and Vincent (Siebert), and Dominic, Helen, James, Agnes, Ingrid, Julia, Lars, and Azelie (Carstens). He was blessed with three great grandchildren in the last year of his life, Charles, Cecilia, and Nancy. He is also survived by numerous beloved nieces and nephews. In addition, Barney leaves behind many friends from the surrounding community that became family, in particular the Lemleys, the Craigs, the Regnerys, the Boehms, the Gilberts, the Feyens, the Brownings, the Slatterys, and Cele Wolf. He is preceded in death by his parents, his wife Barbara in 1993, his oldest son Venantius Johnson in 1999, three of his siblings, Arthur Johnson, Joan Lueneburg, and James Johnson, and Louise and other pre-born grandchildren. He will be interred in a plot beside that of his wife and son in St. Philip’s Church Cemetery near Rolling Ground, WI. 

In lieu of flowers, Barney’s particular request is that donations be made to the Society of Divine Word, earmarked Diocese of Wewak Seminarians, Papua New Guinea. Address; 1985 Waukegan Road, Techny, IL 60082.

Funeral arrangements are being coordinated by Pratt Funeral and Cremation Services in Richland Center. The funeral Mass for Bernard Johnson will be held on Monday, December 2, at St. Philip's Church at 11:00 am with visitation preceding the Mass at 9:00 am.