Cordell Johnson, a long-time Helena attorney, died on May 19, 2023. He was born May 2, 1934, in Helena and raised in Bozeman by his parents Arthur J. M. Johnson and Effie Prewitt Johnson. His father was a professor who became head of the Physics Department at MSU (Montana State College as it was known then) in Bozeman. His mother was a teacher and homemaker.
Cordell graduated from Gallatin County High School in 1952, then attended MSU for one year before transferring to Missoula to enroll in a program that combined business administration and law. In 1956, he received his BA with one year of legal studies completed. After graduating, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army and assigned to the Officer’s Basic Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where upon completion he served as an instructor in a field artillery observation battalion.
Upon completing two years of active duty in the Army, Cordell returned to Missoula to complete his law school education. Shortly thereafter, he met June Bowman of Billings, a Senior completing her degree in elementary education. It was a whirlwind romance! The couple became engaged Christmas of 1958 and were married June 27, 1959, the bride’s 22nd birthday.
The newlyweds returned to Missoula for that summer and Cordell got a job on the University labor crew. To hold this job, Cordell had to join the Laborers and Hod Carriers Union – the pay was higher for a general laborer than it was for a newly minted lawyer. June held a job as a second-grade teacher for a few months during Cordell’s final year in law school. Their first child, daughter Janna, was born in April 1960.
Shortly thereafter, Cordell graduated then took a job in Helena to begin his 36 years as a lawyer. He joined a firm as the youngest of its four attorneys. Cordell learned a lot and formed close friendships with the many attorneys of that firm, renamed “Gough, Shanahan, Johnson, and Waterman” in 1978. Cordell really enjoyed the practice of law. The challenges were great, but it allowed him to meet a great number of wonderful people. It was always a great pleasure for him to be able to help clients solve their legal problems.
Early on, the principal client of the firm was the Great Northern Railway Company and Cordell was trained to work as their in-state trial lawyer. This involved trying cases from Libby to Wolf Point along Montana’s ‘Hi-Line’. After their client merged with another railroad to form the Burlington Northern, the firm was ‘merged’ out of the railroad business. To fill the gap, Cordell took up the practice of estate planning and spent the last several years of his career specializing in that field of law. In 1980 he was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.
Cordell was admitted to practice in all state and federal courts in Montana, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, and the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
Cordell served on the Board of Directors of American Federal Savings and Loan (now Opportunity Bank of Montana) for several years from about 1979 to 1995. He often remembered fondly how difficult it was to believe it was prudent to make a $400,000 loan on a Big Sky condo. In 1990, Governor Stan Stephens appointed Cordell to the State Board of Regents of Higher Education where he served until 1996. It was during his tenure that the six four-year units of the university system were consolidated into two for administrative purposes.
In 1996, Cordell retired from the practice of law. He and June started travelling extensively including spending a few weeks in either Florida or California each winter. Cordell also volunteered at St. Peter’s Hospital, the State Historical Society, and the Lewis & Clark County Literacy Council.
Cordell’s “3 Gs”: God, Golf, and the Griz.
Cordell was confirmed in the Bozeman First Methodist church in 1948 and after moving to Helena he and his wife June became members of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in 1961.
Cordell was a long-time member of the Green Meadow Country Club where he and June (and eldest son, Dave) enjoyed many years of golf and good fellowship. Cordell thought his golf game would improve after he retired, but sadly it did not.
Although raised a Bobcat, Cordell became a Griz when he enrolled at the university in Missoula. He remained a strong Griz fan throughout the remainder of his life.
Cordell’s first wife and mother of his children, June, passed away in 2011. He married long-time acquaintance Kay Mathews in 2013, and they had a devoted marriage until her passing in July of 2019. He was also predeceased by his parents Arthur and Effie and his brother-in-law Fremont Hancock.
He is survived by his daughter Janna (Larry) Cawlfield, and sons David and Todd Johnson; grandchildren Rachael (Paul Nelson) Robnett, Andrea (Zack) Taube, and Jim Robnett; great-grandchildren June Robnett-Nelson and Brooklyn Taube; his sister Judi Hancock and nieces Melanie and Karlene Hancock, as well as nephew Jim (Barb) Hancock and his great-nieces Rachael (Nate) Meadows and Katie (Joel Miles) Hancock.
Please join us at a memorial service for Cordell to be held at 12:00 pm noon on Saturday, June 10th at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N Montana Ave. A reception will be held immediately after. Persons wishing to send memorials for Cordell may send them to St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Helena or a charity of the donor’s choice.
Service Schedule
Memorial Service
12:00 p.m.
Saturday June 10, 2023
Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home
3750 N. Montana Ave
Helena, Montana 59602
Reception
Following the Memorial Service
Saturday June 10, 2023
Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home
3750 N. Montana Ave
Helena, Montana 59602
Service Schedule
Memorial Service
12:00 p.m.
Saturday June 10, 2023
Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home
3750 N. Montana Ave
Helena, Montana 59602
Reception
Following the Memorial Service
Saturday June 10, 2023
Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home
3750 N. Montana Ave
Helena, Montana 59602
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Robin says
Oh Cordell, I was so blessed to get to be a part of your life for a short period of time. You were one of my favorite people! Soar high with the angels sweet friend. Much love, Robin
Mary Lou Potts says
I just want to say how much I enjoyed knowing Cordell (Corky). Such a wonderful caring, thoughtful & generous man. I knew who he was many, many years ago as I worked many years for a law firm in Helena & enjoyed being the person on the phone when people called. But then late in 2013 I received a call from Kay to see if I would be interested in house/pet sitting. I was very interested & we got started right away!! JR & I became fast friends & also from the beginning I learned what GREAT people JR’s folks were!! Such great memories were made over the following years!! Last year Corky joined JR’s new human & we all walked together!! ❣️💐
Tom/Judy Rolfe says
Todd and family,
Tom and I are so very sorry to learn of your Dad’s passing. He was a fine man with a caring heart and a keen legal mind. He will certainly be missed. We are better people for having known him.
Audrey Blomquist Kelly says
Johnson Family: I worked with Cordell at my first law firm job. He was always so kind to me and his example of a fine and fair attorney molded my legal career over the past 35 years. Sending my deepest condolences to all of the family.
Darien G Scott says
Was so sorry to hear of Corky’s passing. Roger and I enjoyed many years of playing bridge with he and June.
Am so sorry not to be able to attend his memorial service, as I will be out of town. My deepest condolences to the family.
Jimmy Robnett says
Grandpa Raisin, as his grandchildren fondly and mischievously called him when we were very young, had this excellent blend of thoughtfulness, generosity, and humor. A top man and model person whom I deeply admire. I treasure the memories of his “grandpa-isms”, the wry turn of the corner of his lip as he would let me attempt to shoot the moon–only to drop a high heart on the last trick, and how he encouraged my inquiry and exploration of new ideas. Last fall we had a bet for “the grand sum of $1” on the Vandals-Griz game. I had to be on the road, so he called me and gave me quarterly updates. One in a billion.
Frances (Fran) Chirgwin Shellenberger says
To Corky’s Family and Friends,
We met in Sunday School at age 7 or 8 at First Methodist Church in Bozeman. By the time we reached Emerson Junior High, my family had moved to S. Third, one block north of the Johnson home. There Corky was called upon to do an extremely difficult (for him) favor for his good friend Art (Artie to us kids) Post. We were all in the same home room and we all took ballroom dancing lessons in the fall. We finished the 1947 season with a formal dance held at the Baxter Moon Room and Artie invited me to the only to have to back out due to a family move. When breaking the date, he explained “Corky will take you.” And so it was that Corky was my date. I am quite sure he would have skipped the event entirely except for this urgent request from Artie, both of them true gentlemen already at age 13. A red rose corsage arrived, perfect for my black and white long formal gown. Corky and I won the fox trot contest that evening.
During our years at Gallatin County High School 1948-52, Corky’s comments broke up classes and the walk home usually included snowball fights. One Hallowe’en the Johnsons gave a Hallowe’en party for the Methodist Youth Fellowship in their home where we bobbed for apples. I remember being horrified at having to dip my long, blonde curls into the half-barrelful of cold water to snag an apple, drenching the curls and leaving me with wet, straight hair, unthinkable for a teenage girl at that time. We were in the same bookkeeping class, taught by a stern woman who always had a frown on her face. Corky made the class bearable with his just-audible quips that made us laugh and got a grin out of her.
We did not see each other again after Corky left in 1953 for college in Missoula until our 20th reunion in Bozeman, 1972. After that, we saw each other at every reunion including the last one, the 65th, in 2017, enjoying a fine dinner as the guests of Art Post that evening. That was the last time I saw him; as always, he left us laughing.
Sometime in the mid ‘90s, our mutual friend Mary Elizabeth Cox Schwarz, whose adult years were spent in Missoula, met me in Helena for lunch, for I had traveled from Maryland to Bozeman, driving a rental car to Helena to visit an aunt. After lunch we decided to visit Corky’s office as Mary was Corky’s childhood friend from elementary school through high school. Although we showed up at his law office without an appointment, Corky welcomed us as the gentleman he was despite our disrupting his afternoon schedule, for the time spent with us was not billable!
I will always remember his sense of humor and how much he added to every room just by being there, every time, everywhere.
Frances (Fran) Chirgwin Shellenberger, Fresno, CA
Ian McNeely says
I am a friend of Jim Robnett who had the pleasure of meeting Corky in the summer of 2004. Jimmy and I were visiting Helena and we spent the night at his grandpa’s house. Corky’s sense of humor was infectious. He had our group of 16-year-olds laughing the whole time. I will always remember his welcoming energy and huge smile.
When we woke up and prepared to drive back to Coeur d’Alene in my beat-up 1992 Saturn, I discovered Corky had cleaned my dirty windshield! It was July in Helena, and you know how buggy it gets! It was such a thoughtful gesture… I never forgot! Almost 20 years later, I still think back fondly to that wonderful time we had with Jim’s warm, funny grandpa who was so thoughtful!
Nicci Jasmin says
Janna and Family,
I’m so sorry for the passing of your Dad. One of the first memories I have of Corky was a get-together at your Flowerree St. house in the early 80s. He was a congenial host and I appreciated his sense of humor. This may sound odd but I like reading obituaries, the biography of a person’s life at the end of their life. They deserve to be read and Corky’s was no exception…the statement about his golf game gave me a laugh. His was definitely a life well lived!
Nicci Jasmin
Nelson S. Weller says
I very much enjoyed a friendship with Cordell during our early Helena days. RSVP Cordell. Nelson ‘Jerry’ Weller