Wanda Mae (Hangman) Johnson passed away peacefully in her bed at the Brookdale Care Facility in Ft. Smith, Arkansas on November 5, 2023. Wanda was the last member of the Albert and Inga Hangman family, surviving her siblings Lafayette, Norman, Arden, Pearl (Peterson), Dorothy (Arends) and Gloria (Pfister).
Wanda was born in Maskell, Nebraska on May 1, 1925, and grew up on the family farm in the Maskell area. She attended high school in Maskell and graduated in the class of 1943. She met Vernon Johnson, who won her heart at a dance while she was working in South Sioux City. Vernon and Wanda were married on April 29, 1951, in Wanda’s church in Maskell, went on a honeymoon in Hot Springs, Arkansas and settled down in a little farmhouse on Vernon’s father’s property near Kingsley, Iowa. They had two children Randy (Ann), currently living in Salt Lake City and Dennis, currently living in Greenwood, Arkansas.
Wanda and Vernon were never far from each other for the rest of their lives. Wanda was an active participant in the farm work on and near the family farm in Kingsley for over 20 years. When they had enough of that tough life, they semi-retired to a chicken farm near Waldron, Arkansas, spent several years as award-winning broiler chicken producers and then retired and stayed on the farmland. Vernon preceded Wanda in death by two years.
Cremation arrangements are under the direction of Bulger Funeral Home.
A small memorial for both Wanda and Vernon will be held at their neighborhood church (the Denton Church) sometime in January. That will be followed by a second memorial in Kingsley, Iowa tentatively planned for April 29, 2024. That will include the interment of their ashes at their gravesite in the Kingsley Cemetery.
