Rachel Mae (Hallett) Johnson

Rachel Mae "Polly" Hallett Johnson, 88, loving mother and grandmother, died on March 15, 2022. Polly was born in Plainfield, Massachusetts, and grew up in Queens, New York. She graduated from Grinnell College phi beta kappa. After a brief stint as a lab technician in Boston, she went on to Harvard Law School where she was one of eight women in her class who graduated with a LL.B. Her future husband, Robert A. "Joe" Johnson, was a classmate. After law school, Polly and Joe married and lived in Concord, New Hampshire, before heading west to New Mexico in the early 1960s. Family lore has it that Polly got the highest score on the New Mexico bar exam the year that Polly and Joe took it. She and Joe were married for 57 years until his death in 2018. She made sudden stops for roadside raspberry stands and magically soothed babies. She was empathetic, immensely intelligent, and extremely funny. We will miss her tremendously.

Polly is survived by her daughter Mary Johnson, Mary's husband Bruce Brown and their daughter Elizabeth JohnsonBrown; her son Hap Johnson, Hap's wife Sherri Johnson and their children Hayden and Will Johnson; her son Tim Johnson; and her daughter Theo Johnson, Theo's husband Jonathan Hagmaier and their children Robbie and Jonah Hagmaier.