Pacific Palisades resident Ann Cattell Johnson, an occupational therapist for 60 years and a sculptor, has passed away at the age of 87. Born in Western Springs, Illinois, to a Chicago industrialist and a theatre actress/director who started the Theatre of Western Springs in 1929, Ann was the last surviving member of the Cattells, her immediate family. The family’s fortunes changed significantly during the Depression, but Ann had childhood arthritis and, despite the expense, was sent to Arizona for a cure. She outgrew the disease and stayed, falling in love with the Southwest. She began her studies at the University of Arizona in visual art and occupational therapy and finished them at USC with a master’s of science. Her first job as an occupational therapist was in Santa Barbara, where she met her husband-to-be, James (Jimmy) Johnson. He had returned from the war and was working at Disney Studios where he flourished for 37 years, ultimately as head of Walt Disney Records and Music. Ann continued her career in OT, specializing in victims of cerebral palsy and in art that heals, encouraging some of her patients to start careers in the arts’visual and literature’themselves. During this period, she had four children, the third of whom, Gina, was autistic. The Johnsons became active in the issues and politics of California’s mental health system, and started the nonprofit organization Parents and Friends of Mentally Ill Children, which used satellite homes and foster parents to wean mentally ill children from hospital settings and back into healthy, lively foster homes of four to six children. In the meantime, Ann was specializing in cerebral palsy OT for very young (infants to 3 years old). Working with Swiss specialist Anne Muller and Palisadian Dr. Margaret Jones at UCLA Medical Center, she helped develop groundbreaking new ways to work with these young patients’some of which are still used today. Ann’s daughter Gina passed away in 1973, her husband Jimmy in 1976. In 1980, she met Hughes chief scientist Eugene Grant. With his love and help in engineering some of her more difficult metal sculptures, she created an impressive body of abstract work, from huge hanging mobiles to small standing sculptures. They moved to the Palisades to be closer to her brother, David, who had lived here for nearly 50 years. Ann’s career as an OT lasted 60 years. She retired in 2001, and continued to devote herself to her loves’Gene Grant, her children and grandchildren, hiking, Great Danes, traveling, and vigorous ocean swimming. She and Gene sailed down the Nile in a felucca, cruised the Galapagos Islands in a yacht, snorkeled the kelp beds of the California coastal islands from Gene’s boat Circe, and took many motoring tours through the western states. With her niece she took a camel safari through Algeria. She was a member of the Palisades AARP chapter since its inception, and active in the Palisades Art Association. Ann is survived by her loving mate Gene; children, Glenys Johnson of Sebastopol, California, Grey Johnson of Nyack, New York, and Gennifer Choldenko of Tiburon, California; and grandchildren Ian and Kai Brown and Georgiana and Madeleine Johnson. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on February 20 at her home. Please throw a shell in the Pacific Ocean to remember her. Memorial donations can be sent to the Autism Research Institute, 4182 Adams Ave., San Diego, CA 92116.
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