One Woman's Life Brings Love to Many
By Peter Cleary
Eighty-five years ago, a white man and a black teenaged girl gave birth to a girl with skin the color of caramel.
Both abandoned her shortly after she was born.
"I came into the world, my mamma didn't want me, my daddy didn't own me," she said.
A black woman passing through town felt pity and adopted the baby girl. She brought the baby home to her husband, who looked at her and said he didn't want a white baby in his house. The choice was clear to the husband: Either the newborn would leave or he would leave. The woman chose the baby.
The baby was Willie "Dear" Johnson. After being deserted by those who should have loved her, Johnson realized that she also had a choice. She chose love.
"She created her own world of love," her son Karey said.
Through decades of selfless caring, Johnson brought the love she didn't know as a child into the lives of many.
At a time when black children had to order their food from the back door of McDonald's while the white children were able to walk up to the front window, Johnson taught the black children that they were equal to the white children. And she showed them they should be treated as such.
Shortly after her son enrolled at Immaculate Conception Elementary School in 1953, she began to volunteer her time at the school.
The school was started that year by St. Paul's Catholic Church in what church records described as the "negro ghetto" of St. Petersburg. The Franciscan nuns who staffed the school wanted to serve the needs of black children who may have otherwise been neglected.
Johnson and Sister Elizabeth Anne, who worked at the school, would pile their students into a station wagon and take them to restaurants that had policies of not allowing blacks in their dining rooms.
The nun would call ahead to let the manager know she was bringing a group of kids to the restaurant. The managers would always welcome the nun and her flock on the phone, assuming the kids were white.
When the group arrived, there was often confusion. But Johnson would not demean herself and her students by entering through a back door or eating in a separate dining room. So she and Sister Elizabeth Anne marched the children in, sat them down and ordered them lunch, despite the resistance.
Her son Karey said that he never realized eating in the main dining room of a restaurant was bold move for a black child. It was just what they did.
"She let [the children] know they had self-worth in a time they were told they didn't," said James Taylor, Johnson's son-in-law.
Johnson, who identifies herself as black, benefited in endeavors such as these from her mixed heritage. On a visit to Jerusalem she was mistaken for an Arab, and in Chinese restaurants the servers occasionally speak to her in Chinese. The ethnically ambiguous nature of Johnson's looks allowed her access to many places. "Everybody always treated me like I wasn't who I was," she said. Johnson did not recall feeling discrimination in Florida.
Johnson, who knew neglect but also love, found her calling at the school. After volunteering in the office, cafeteria and classrooms for nearly 20 years, she started working as a preschool teacher in 1972.
She found daily inspiration for teaching in a poem that quotes Gandhi: "If we are to find peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the children." She would read this poem often during her days in the classroom and still has it to this day tucked safely into a folder of keepsakes.
Dallas Jackson, a former student who is also her godson, remembers Johnson as a woman who welcomed him into her life. "She was always very caring," Jackson said.
Johnson's love goes beyond that which she gives to children.
Before she had children of her own and volunteered at the school, Johnson took care of the sick of Mercy Hospital.
As a young woman, Johnson joined the Gray Ladies, an auxiliary of the Red Cross. The volunteer group served a role similar to Candy Stripers, and the job of welcoming visitors and bringing flowers to patients suited Johnson well.
It also touched her heart. She grieved for those patients neglected by their families.
A patient she worked with often asked Johnson to call her son and ask him to visit. She called the son repeatedly, but he never visited. "That hurt me so bad when he didn't come," Johnson said.
Johnson was not alone as she made St. Petersburg a more caring place. Her husband, Cleveland Johnson, was a real estate agent who worked to integrate the Lake Maggiore and Lakewood Estates neighborhoods in the 1960s. At the time he started work as an agent, those were white neighborhoods. But when houses went on the market, Cleveland would try to sell them to black families. At times, he even gave up part of his commission to help those who couldn't afford a house in the neighborhood.
Cleveland's integration campaign caused some unrest in the area, and the Johnson family would receive threatening phone calls. These threats upset Johnson and made her fear for her safety.
But her husband told her not to worry, and she had faith that love would prevail.
While she was a crusader in the daily struggle for equality, Johnson does not consider herself extraordinary. Paraphrasing the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she said she just tried to love someone.
That's a lot to ask for a woman who was disowned twice when she entered this world.
Dr. Leroy McCloud, whose daughter attended Immaculate Conception, has fond memories of Johnson. He remembers her as "the most jovial, pleasant person."
Those who know her call her "Dear," a name given to her by her oldest daughter, but also a lasting tribute to the place she holds in the hearts of many.
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