Johnson, Miss Edith 1906-1971

JOHNSON

Posted By: Linda Ziemann, volunteer (email)
Date: 8/21/2008 at 20:29:48

EDITH JOHNSON, FHA FOUNDER, DIED AT 65

A longtime LeMars Home Economics teacher, Edith Johnson, 65, 121 Second St NE, died Saturday, Nov. 13, at Floyd Valley Hospital.

She had been hospitalized four months, the length of her illness.

Services for the well-known teacher will be Tuesday at 2 p.m. at St. John's American Lutheran Church, with Rev. Arnold Imbrock and Rev. Don Deines officiating.

Burial will be in the Amherst Cemetery at Marcus under the direction of the Mauer funeral home, LeMars.

Edith Jennette Johnson was born April 6, 1906, at Marcus, a daughter of the late Emil and Elin Johnson. She was never married.

She lived at Marcus as a youth and taught in the Washta, Sabula, Webb, Bedford and LeMars school systems.

She came to LeMars in 1943 and was home economics teacher at LeMars Community High School for 28 years. She retired last Spring.

She actively participated in the Plymouth County fair, was a member of the fair board. She was the founder-advisor of Future Homemakers of America in LeMars.

Miss Johnson was a member of St. John's Lutheran Church, National Education Assn., American Home Economics Assn., Iowa State Educational Assn, Iowa Vocational Assn., Plymouth County Home Economics Assn., Plymouth County Fair Board, and the Iowa State Future Homemakers of America.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two sisters, Ethel and Agnes, and two brothers, Robert and George.

Survivors are a brother Earl Johnson of Marcus; a sister, Mrs. Dale (Esther) Bruner of Muncie, Ind., and 19 nephews and nieces.

EDITH JOHNSON

Hundred of girls—most them now young women and matrons with daughters of their own—will long remember Edith Johnson. She was their home ec teacher at LeMars High School.

Miss Johnson’s class work, leadership in organizing and sustaining active interest in the LeMars chapter of the Future Homemakers of America and contributions to the Plymouth County Fair are well known.

But her person-to-person interest and help for large numbers in young girls is best known by only those she was able to guide or persuade. Countless scholarships, numerous opportunities for encouragement and words of censure or praise through the years have affected the lives of two generations of women and girls.

Home economics also was a “vocational” subject at LeMars High School when Miss Johnson took over the department. Through her foresight, it is now a “professional career” course.

Miss Johnson retired from teaching last spring after 28 years of dedication to home economics in LeMars, Iowa, and the nation, but mostly to “her girls.” Her teaching was an ever widening circle outside her classroom.
Her death last Saturday just at the dawning of retirement years is a personal loss to all those who knew and appreciated her efforts. ---g.k.

IN THE MAIL BAG
DR. KLUCKHOHN SAYS EDITH JOHNSON “POURED OUT HER LIFE FORCE”

To the editor,

Along with the entire LeMars community, my wife and I were deeply saddened over the past weekend to learn of the death of Miss Edith Johnson. Her passing has taken from our midst not only a fine personal friend and former colleague but also one of our community’s most devoted leaders of youth.

As a homemaking teacher in the LeMars public school system from 1943 to 1971, Miss Johnson taught a whole generation of girls the rudiments—as well as the finer points—of cooking, sewing, household management, personal grooming, consumer buying and the many other facets of the home economics curriculum. But her teaching encompassed much more. For, along with these things, she taught life and she taught character.

It was my great privilege to be associated with Miss Johnson as a coworker in the LeMars schools for a period of 15 years, from her joining the school faculty in 1943 to my retirement from the superintendency in 1958. I found her to be not only a loyal colleague and a skilled teacher but also a person of highest moral and spiritual ideals—admired by her students and respected by her fellow faculty members.

Edith Johnson was one of the most energetic and dynamic as well as one of the most conscientious and completely dedicated person I have ever known. Not sparing herself, she literally poured out her life force for those she worked with and felt a responsibility for.

The influence of her teaching, her character and her life of selfless service will live on as a blessing in the lives of hundreds of girls—now grown to young womanhood and adulthood—who, with the countless others who knew her, will always remember her with affection and gratitude.

May our schools and our community never be without her kind!! ~Harvey N. Kluckhohn

~All of the above articles printed in the LeMars Daily Sentinel, November 1971