Sondra Johnson

Sondra Smith Johnson, 85, passed from this life surrounded by her loving family on August 9, 2025. Sondra was born in Richfield, Utah, the youngest child of Moroni West and Lena LaVerda Poole Smith. She spent her youth in Provo, where during a stint as a candy girl at the Academy Theatre she scolded a particularly rowdy young man named Dean, who returned to apologize the next day. They would marry in 1963 in the Logan temple.

Sondra attended Provo High School and BYU. During her professional career, she enjoyed many years in influential administrative positions at private and military institutions, but we always suspected that she was actually an undercover CIA agent, given her uncanny ability to draw out, empathetically but tenaciously, the deepest secrets of everyone she ever talked to.

Despite this versatile skillset, her truest vocation was caring for other people. Hers was the home where all the neighborhood kids gathered, and as her children grew older, the household absorbed their friends as additional family members. The original Energizer Bunny, Sondra instigated indoor water-fights and midnight sledding excursions, overpacked for many camping trips and travel adventures, and stayed up as late as the latest partier. Fortified by a cheerful presumption that the universe would give her what she wanted if she was charming enough, Sondra served as everybody's friendly cruise director, and she showed up to every graduation, robotics competition, dance recital, Ultimate match, soccer game, school play, and musical performance that her kids and grandkids ever had. She loved the Utah Jazz, the Olympics, and Hallmark Christmas movies any time of the year.

With Dean, she instilled in her children a thirst for learning and experience, and a confidence that allowed them to explore the world knowing that they had a safe place to fail. What a profound gift that certainty of steadfast love and support has been to us all.

Momdra is survived by Rolland Dean Johnson, her devoted husband of nearly 62 years, and by her adoring chickens: Kimberly Johnson, Stephanie Johnson Ivers (along with spouse David), and Ryan Smith Johnson (along with spouse Janelle), as well as her four grandsons, Elijah and Bennett Greenfield and Jack and Elliot Ivers, and four granddogs. She has been reunited in death with her beloved parents and siblings and her son-in-law Jay Hopler.

A graveside family service will be held at the Provo City Cemetery, followed by an open house celebration of life at the family home. The family would like to express special thanks to Ron McDougal at McDougal Funeral Homes for his kind support and guidance during this time.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Sondra's favorite charity, the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake (https://rescuesaltlake.org/).