Arthur and Dolores Johnson Scholarship

This is truly a Lutheran love story. Arthur and Dolores Johnson met while attending Luther League at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Los Angeles. They dated for five years before setting a wedding date. But their wedding plans changed when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese in 1941 and Arthur received his draft notice. In just one week’s time they pulled their plans together and were married before he left. Their pastor must have tied a pretty strong knot at their ceremony, since their marriage endured for 59 years, to be interrupted only by Arthur’s death in 2001.

After the war was over, the couple settled into their home on Croft Street in Los Angeles. Both worked diligently at their jobs—Arthur in management with Western Electric (41 years) and Dolores as accounts payable supervisor with the Gas Company (35 years). In all those years she never learned to drive a car, taking public transportation to work every day.

Both Arthur and Dolores worked hard at their jobs, but the church was the main focus of their social activities. They were members of Grace Lutheran Church in Culver City for the last 25 years of their married life. Always willing to work and care for others, they served in many leadership and servant positions through the years. Art served on the church council, as treasurer, youth adviser and general go-to man wherever he was needed. Dolores also served on the church council and was president of several women’s groups. Arthur and Dolores loved to travel, and that love took them to Sweden four times, to Europe, and to parts of Africa, Asia and Canada. But perhaps Dolores’ greatest service was as caregiver for many years to Arthur, to her mother-in law, and to her own mother during their lengthy illnesses..

In 2006 Dolores took steps to complete a project she and Arthur had often talked about—establishing a scholarship at CLU to help worthy students of religious conviction achieve their dreams. With the assistance of her long-time friend and financial adviser, Dolores made the decision to endow the Arthur and Dolores Johnson Scholarship for the benefit of a long line of future students she would never have the chance to meet. That, she felt confident, was what Arthur would have wanted.