Leona Rae McQueen, née Johnson

8/17/1935 – 4/28/2023

Her life wasn't easy and she wasn't easy- stubborn as the day is long. Her adoptive family called her "Pip" or "Pipney" and considered her a real handful.

Mama was a handsome woman with legs for days and was scouted to be a model in her teens, but life had other plans. She became a young wife and left the Midwest behind for the Desert Southwest. She had five of us kids over the course of almost two decades, and we all turned out stubborn as well- go figure.

She loved to sing and was good at it. She'd dance a little, too- to The Rolling Stones or belly dance or Hawaiian records while she was at the kitchen sink. She burned endless batches of cookies and was a notoriously bad cook, too impatient to even make Jello properly. Her sense of humor was as black and dry as her baked goods. But cravings still arise for her "Peanut Butter Rocks," somehow burned on the outside, yet raw on the inside, and overly salty. She tried.

After she and Dad divorced, her restless spirit took her back to her girlhood home in Illinois, and then back to New Mexico. She moved more times than we can probably count. She spent many of her later years in Arizona and Washington under the dedicated care and support of her wonderful middle daughter, Cristal, and Cristal's amazing and generous partner Dennis.

Mama was complicated and mercurial. She could be rough on people and things. But we always knew she loved us- even as Alzheimer's and dementia blurred and erased the outlines of the woman we had known. The past two years have been a dramatic decline, with many hospitalizations, procedures, and hard decisions to make. Mercifully, her final descent was brisk and her passing this morning was peaceful.

She was preceded in death by her birth parents, her adoptive parents and sister, and more recently her identical twin sister. She leaves behind two ex-husbands, five children, three grandchildren, ten great grandchildren, four great-great grandchildren, and countless other relatives and in-laws.

She will be remembered and respected in all her permutations of light and dark. May her wandering soul be made whole and finally find the home and hard-won rest she's more than earned. Fly free with the owls, Mama, and pat all the cats, and be at ease. And as you always said, "Keep in touch." We love you.