Ada Johnson

Today I am researching my great-grandmother Ada Johnson (nee Taylor) who is my father's maternal grandmother so I called dad to get some information about her. According to my father Ada's mother died when she was 2 or 3 years old and Ada's father was a womanizing drunkard who died at Broughton Hospital where he was mental patient due to Syphilis. I don't know Ada's parent's names yet but she was born on June 22, 1895. Ada may have been raised by Linzy and Mittie Taylor. The 1910 Federal Census lists an Ada Taylor as a cousin living with Linzy. Linzy's neighbors are William and Jane Johnson and their son Dave W. Johnson. The Federal Census is all over the place with Linzy and Mittie's names. Sometimes Linzy is listed as Linsy or Lindsey. Mittie has also been listed as Mattie so I'm not sure what their actual names were.


According to the 1930 Federal Census, Ada married Dave W. Johnson in 1913 when she was 17 and he was 25. Their children were Allen, Wendell, Emmett, Violet, Maude, Allie (my grandmother) David and Frank. According to my father, there was also Jack who was the oldest child and then there were Martha and Lee who were not yet born at the time of the 1930 Federal Census. I went back to the 1920 census but didn't find a Jack Johnson listed in the household either so I'm wondering if Jack is a nickname for one of Ada's sons already listed and not an additional son. But which son is he? He's still alive so I would ask him but I don't know how to reach him and grandma Allie is insane so asking her is out of the question as she is liable to accuse my mother of hitting her over the head with a lamp again.


Dave W. Johnson was a farmer and mica miner. According to my father, Dave Johnson mined mica on his own property on Buck Hill and made quite a bit of money off of it. Unfortunately, Dave W. Johnson's death certificate says that he died on November 6, 1943 from silicosis due to drilling in the mica mines. Dad says that Ada didn't get the money from the mines. Ada and Dave's sons got the money instead and they drank it all away.


Dad says that at some point in Ada's old age her sons made her move to Washington State to be with them and when she moved out they burned her house to the ground so she couldn't move back. But she moved back anyway and rebuilt her log cabin with her $29.00 monthly pension. :) Granny Johnson died on December 11, 1980 shortly after I was born (April 1979) so I never got to know her but dad says that he and mom used to go up to her log cabin every weekend to take her to buy groceries and then to get a hamburger and strawberry shake :) Dad called Granny Johnson his role model and said that he has never met another person as amazing as she was. I wonder how mom feels about that?