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Editorial

Family celebrate Bobbie Johnston’s 90th birthday by telling stories about her

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(Recent photos by Hunter Weeks. Black and white photo courtesy of Gena Goodson)

Someone once said that everyone has a story, but how many stories does one have at the age of 90? The family of Bobbie Johnston, affectionately dubbed Mer, began answering just that question when I spoke with them at her birthday get-together. Although it barely scratches the surface of the life she has lived, the following are just some of the stories they told.

From Gena Goodson (Granddaughter):

“Mer was Born in Oxford, MS in 1933 to her parents Addie B Bonds and John Clark Bonds. She grew up in Pontotoc, MS where she played basketball in high school.
She was a social worker for the Salvation Army where she also served as the young people’s sergeant major, as well as disaster services.
She is known as Bobbie, Mer, Ms. Bobbie, Aunt Bobbie, and Little Mama.
She was married to Samuel H Johnston sr. with whom she has
six children, 16 grandchildren, and 27 great grands.

She met her husband when she and her mother went to visit family in Eudora, AR and he was down on the river stretching out his nets and getting his fishing stuff together. My great grandmother sent my grandmother down there to help him, and it just kind of went from there.

This one time the kids were playing with the ball in the house, and I don’t even remember what year this was, but she told them to quit or somebody was going to get hurt. Well they continued to do it, so she made sure she got hit, at which time she fell out in the floor and pretended to be dead for about an hour and a half.

Another time, I was out swinging on the tree swing. I was swinging off a pile of pallets out in the yard, and I swung over a snake. Now I didn’t know what the hell it was, I was about 5 years old or 6, so I started screaming, and here she comes, housecoat flying. She yanked up the hoe and chased that snake all over the damn yard. She killed it.”

From Susie Stauts (Youngest Daughter):

“In 1969 she worked Hurricane Camille with the Salvation army as a volunteer. She took the canteen and went straight down there as soon as it hit. She was gone for a week or so feeding people down there. She’s helped 1000s of people.”

From Jeanne Goodson (Great Granddaughter):
“When I was six or seven years old, Grandmer comes in the house and says, ‘You wanna see what I got out in the freezer?,’ cause I had just got out from school, right. I’m like, ‘ok.’ So she takes me outside, to the shop to the freezer, and she reaches in and pulls out this cup and inside this cup is a frozen baby copperhead that she had caught, put in a cup, and stuck in the freezer to show me.”

From Paul Johnston (Son):

“I have a story from before I was born. My father was running his outboard and hit a log under the water. The motor jumped up, and the fly wheel cut his arm real bad. The motor he had was too big for my mother to crank, so he bought a smaller motor so she could crank it and run the trot lines while he recovered”

From Chris Stauts (Grandson):

“Me and my little brother John, he’s a year younger than me. Growing up we played baseball, and we had an aluminum bat. We were hitting rocks out in the yard one day, and we had decided that we needed to go hit peaches out of grandmother’s tree, and we hit every peach that we could find off of that tree. We hit them off the limbs. Grandmother got wind of it and made us go pick our switch off of that tree so she could whip our butts. That tree never produced fruit again. She was so angry at us.

Growing up we were in the Salvation Army. She was a social worker. She brought us to church through the youth ministries, etc. We always took trips with the church, and one of my favorite memories of grandmother going on those trips with us, we went to Gatlinburg, TN one year. We got to drive up through the mountains, and grandmother used to collect rocks from different places that she went. She tells the captain, ‘Hey you stop right there; I see a rock that I want. So she made him stop, and she said, ‘Chris, run out there and get that rock and bring it back to me.’ It was like this big. (Over a foot). I’m thirteen running through the mountains and it was right on the stream. It was a wonderful trip and getting to experience that with her was amazing. She was over the youth ministry for many years at the Salvation Army. It was cool growing up in that environment, kids from tons of different backgrounds. Her being the social worker at the Salvation Army, she got to touch a lot of lives. Thousands.

Grandmother is the most inspirational woman I have ever met. I (we) often refer to her as Superwoman because of the way she lives life day in and day out. Growing up from the dirt floors and extremely tough times, to producing the family you saw last weekend is what a legacy is all about. The amount of trials and tribulations she went through to become the woman she is today is awe inspiring. It’s amazing seeing how her children turned out to be so great and it’s because of the woman that raised each of them. Several born in the riverbanks of the MS river, to now having grandchildren/children that are prospering in today’s world.

Not only did she improve her family, but also the community in which she served. Being a social worker at the Salvation Army for many years has to be one of the most challenging yet rewarding careers on Earth. The impact she had on thousands of individuals will be felt for generations to come. She took in so many individuals that were struggling in life , whether it be through addiction/poverty/disabilities, and guided them along a path to a flourishing life.

Even today she still serves others as her calling. There isn’t a grandchild/great grandchild in our family that hasn’t sat at her dining room table and ate a fresh cooked biscuit that was whipped up just because she wanted to ensure they had some food to eat while they sat around and talked.

All these things she did in a righteous and serving manner and continues to do today. I’m so proud to call her my grandmother and thankful I was lucky enough to be born into her legacy. She truly is Superwoman!”


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