October 13, 1931 – February 5, 2026
Benjamin Franklin Johnson III, 94, passed away on February 5, 2026 at his home in Los Altos Hills, California. He moved to Los Altos in 1965. Ben was born to Benjamin Franklin Johnson Jr., and Charlotte Malboeuf on October 13, 1931, and a descendant of Richard S. Perkins, one of the founders of Portland, Oregon, Ben was raised in Portland and in Lebanon, Oregon, a lumber town. After losing his father at the age of seventeen, Ben graduated from Lincoln High School in Oregon and enrolled at Stanford University in 1949. There, he soon became a life-long friend of Tad Taube, a fellow dormmate at Encina Hall, with whom he would later become a business partner at Woodmont Properties for four decades.
At Stanford, he joined the Sigma Nu fraternity and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, an MBA, and served in the ROTC. After graduating, he served two years in Korea as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He returned to Stanford earning a master’s degree in Stanford’s newly established computer programming department and, during that time, he met Sylvia Ghelardi, also a student at Stanford. To support himself while studying, he played piano at Rudolfo’s in Palo Alto. A classically trained pianist, Ben was exceptionally talented, could play by ear, and masterfully performed both traditional music and his beloved tunes from the 1920’s and 1930’s.
In 1959, he married Sylvia. They had four children. Amongst their many memories, Ben’s children fondly remember their father as an amateur magician who delighted them and other Los Altan children at Marion Jackston’s Main Street clothes shop with his magic shows. An aficionado of mathematics, he frequently amused himself and his family by solving math problems in his head. During their sixty-six year marriage, Ben and Sylvia enjoyed traveling all over the world, embarking on international bike trips, an African safari, treks through the Panamanian cloud forest, and tours of the Egyptian pyramids. An avid photographer, he returned home with scores of photographs, many of which he developed himself in his home darkroom. His passing has left his family forever grateful for all that he gave them.
Ben is survived by his wife, his children, Catherine, Victoria, David (Achel), and Sarah and his grandchildren, Wilson, Charlotte (Evan), Benjamin, Nathan, and Imogene, his sister, Susan Webb, and her children, Lawrence, Christopher, and Whitney.
