Illinois native and longtime Florida resident Barbara Johnston Mitchell passed away peacefully from natural causes on June 21, 2024. She was 93.

She was born Barbara Lee Johnston on October 24, 1930, the oldest of four siblings belonging to Kenneth B. and Edythe Hughes Johnston of Evanston, Illinois. She had an immediate younger brother named Kenneth B. Johnston, Jr., and two sisters Susan, and the youngest, Karen. Their father worked as the Circulation Editor for the Chicago Sun Times.

Barbara was academically active growing up, attending Millikin University and ultimately Northwestern University. Shortly out of college, she met and fell in love with Wausau, Wisconsin, native Norman D. Mitchell. Norman originally worked as an Executive in a Chicago company. They got married on June 2, 1956.

The couple adopted three children at birth Steven Paul Mitchell (now 64), Peter James Mitchell (now 62) and Diane Mitchell Jenkins (now 60). This family moved from the Chicago area to Atlanta, Minneapolis, and ultimately the greater New York City metropolitan area as father Norman was promoted through the ranks of paper manufacturer Boise Cascade. They lived for seven years in Montvale, New Jersey.

In the Fall of 1973, Norman was diagnosed with colon cancer and died suddenly on December 30, 1973. Barbara relocated the family to where her father retired in Sarasota, Florida, in the Summer of 1974. Barbara became a business owner and mortgage broker while raising her three children on her own. Oldest son Steve, born on March 18, 1960, became an avid outdoorsman who now does whitewater rafting instruction near Cullawee, North Carolina. Peter, born on January 31, 1962, is a University of Florida alumnus who joined the U.S. Marines out of Sarasota in 1984, and experienced a 20-year military career. Hes now semi-retired and living in Zephyrhills, Florida. Daughter Diane, born on December 4, 1963, became a business executive for a major sporting goods company and now lives where her father was raised in Wausau, Wisconsin.

Barbara was a Zephyrhills, Florida, resident for her final years and was the grandmother of five. At last count she has 17 Great Grandchildren. Shes Matriarch of a large and grateful family. She will be greatly missed and dearly loved. Her immediate family will hold a small, private gathering on her behalf in the coming days. She ultimately will be put to rest with her husband in Wausau, Wisconsin.