Doris Lee Hardy

Doris Lee Hardy was born on August 3, 1957, to Kiyoe Hayakawa Johnson and Jesse Harmen Johnson in Tokyo, Japan. She passed away peacefully on November 12, 2025, at Memorial Hospital where friends had spent many hours in the ICU with her. As a lifetime diabetic only a heart attack could bring her down.

Her parents brought Doris, a little toddler, to the United States after Dad’s discharge from the U.S. Airforce. After a few months they settled in Colorado Springs where Doris would spend most of her adult life. Doris inherited much of her mother’s Japanese attributes: gentility, kindness, respectfulness, the desire to please others and a very quick learning ability. She attended elementary school and high school in Colorado Springs graduating with honors and then moved on to Colorado College.

For many years she volunteered working with junior diabetic children who she taught how to live comfortably with their insulin injections. In addition, she worked as a stenographer with the El Paso County Government for seven years and then had to retire due to her diabetes. Her employees were so pleased with her and her work she received a lifelong retirement package. To augment her income, she started taking care of animals whose owners were away, house sitting and garden tending. The friends she made from all these contacts stayed with her.

She loved the arts and painted exceedingly well, having taken numerous art classes in all mediums. Cooking Japanese dishes using her mother’s recipes was another pastime. In her later years she lived at Bear Creek Senior Homes and then Sunny Vista where again she gathered friends.

She is survived by her brother, Steven Johnson, of Loveland, Colorado, and son, Alex Ayala, of Colorado Springs. Her parents and sister Linda Lee Johnson predeceased her.

In lieu of flowers, consider “Breakthrough TID” (formerly Juvenile Diabetes research institute foundation) is the leading organization funding Type 1 research. Address : 200 Vesey Street, 28th Flr, New York, NY 10281.