From the Blue Ridges to the Sandhills:
            The History of 4 North Carolina Families

The Family of Lindsay Johnson and Martha White

Lindsay Jackson Johnson was born August 26, 1861 in Stokes County, North Carolina. He was the first child of Allen and Elizabeth Johnson of North Carolina. Around 1880 he married Martha White, born May 17, 1862 in Stokes County to Joe and Mary May White.

At the time of the 1900 census, Lindsay and Martha lived on a farm in the Dan River district of Patrick County, Virginia. They had been married for 18 years and had seven children. By 1910, they were in the Quaker Gap township in western Stokes County, North Carolina. The occupation of parents and children is listed as farm labor. In 1930, the couple lived on the Franklin Road in Mt. Airy with their three youngest sons, all of whom worked in a furniture factory.

Lindsay and Martha are pictured above, about 1930. He died December 11, 1931. She died May 7, 1933. At that time she lived in the Bannertown section of Mount Airy. Martha and Lindsay were buried at Old Hollow Primitive Baptist Church in Toast, North Carolina.

Oraphy Johnson was born in September of 1882, according to the 1900 census. She was 17 years old at the time of the census and does not appear with the family in 1910. Spelling being approximate at best in census data, her name may actually have been the Biblical name Orpah or the Greek name Orphia and may have been pronounced "Orphie."

Emily Elizabeth (Betty) Johnson was born September 14, 1885. She married Walter Lee Thore, who was born October 31, 1882. He worked as a veneer layer in a furniture factory at the time of the 1920 and 1930 Census. They lived near the granite quarry in Mt. Airy and had at least three sons and three daughters. Walter died Oct 24, 1947, and Betty died March 30, 1969. They were buried at Old Hollow Primitive Baptist Church.

Sarepta Johnson was born April 29, 1886 in Stokes County. She married James Austin Holt, pictured at left, and had three daughters. She died of hemorrhaging from a gastric ulcer on July 7, 1915, when her children were very young. Her husband died October 27, 1958.

Sarepta's oldest daughter,Carrie, was born November 26, 1907 in Stokes County. Carrie married Hobert Lawson and had three children. She worked at Renfro Mills in Mt. Airy and was a member of Northside Baptist Church. She died March 10, 1989. Delphia Ann was born April 14, 1910. Delphia, who never married, died October 28, 1968, and was buried at Salem Methodist Church in Surry County, where her father is also buried. Lena was born October 29, 1913 and married Isaac Clarence (Zack) Carpenter. Lena lived in Winston-Salem and died April 12, 1987. Her husband passed away in 1978.

Sarepta was a popular name at the end of the nineteenth century. In the book of Luke in the New Testament, Sarepta was the name of a city to which the prophet Elias was sent, in the story that begins, "A prophet hath no honor in his own country."

William Pryor (Bill) Johnson was born April 6, 1889 in Stokes County. When he registered for the draft in 1917, he was farming in Surry County and married to Piney Senter. Piney was born January 7, 1892, and they had seven children. She died January 7, 1933. Bill later married Lula Collins, who died in 1963. He died January 17, 1965, and was buried at Zion Hill Primitive Baptist Church (also called Crooked Oak) in Surry County, where Piney and sons Rufus E. (April 6, 1922-Nov. 2, 1972) and Greer Wesley (April 5, 1917-Aug. 24, 1959) were also buried. Oldest son James Pryor, who was born about 1913, died in 1994. He was a florist and played the fiddle. His younger brother Harley, who died in 2001, was also a musician. Bill and Piney had one daughter, Virginia, born circa 1916, who married Wesley Seal. Virginia died in 2002. Son Kyle was born Dec 10, 1919. He married Eva Ashby and was a veteran of World War II. He died in March, 1983.

Jessie Fannie Johnson was born November 25, 1892, in Stokes County. She was an accomplished seamstress and had skills in all types of needlework. At Sarepta's death, she cared for her sister's three daughters for some time. She married William Edgar (Ed) Oakley on Christmas Eve in 1916. (Photograph at right, circa 1916.) Ed was a widower with a small daughter.

Fannie is the woman in the photograph below, with three of her brothers at Ed's funeral in 1956. She died March 24, 1976.

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Fannie and Ed and their children.

 James Jackson (Jim) Johnson was born June 4, 1897 in Stokes County. He lived in Bannertown and later in the City View section of Winston-Salem, where he worked for R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. He married Marie Parris, who was born Sept. 10, 1900 in Spartanburg, S. C. to Eula and Minnie Papp Parriss.

Marie was known as an excellent cook. She loved to work jigsaw puzzles and shop at the dime stores in Winston-Salem. In her living room, she had a collection of porcelain shoes. At her death on March 19, 1961, she was a member of Kerwin Baptist Church and had lived at City View for 23 years. Jim Johnson died January 27, 1966. They are buried at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens in Winston-Salem.

Jim and Marie had two children, James Otis Johnson (Sept. 12, 1925-Sept. 26, 1992) and Bessie Johnson (Mrs. Willie) Wall (July 17, 1923-Dec. 1984.) Otis lived in City View and worked for AT&T. He served in the US Navy in World War II. Bessie's husband was minister of Kerwin Baptist Church.

(Photograph above of Jim and Marie with children Otis and Bessie about 1930; Jim is man on far right in photograph below; Marie is woman on far right in photograph below.)

Mary E. Johnson was born circa 1899. She married a Halsey. According to her sister Fannie's obituary in 1976, she lived in Delaware or Maryland. In 1966, according to her brother's obituary, she was in Washington, D.C. She had a daughter named Margaret, and a granddaughter named Patricia.

Claytie F. Johnson was born around 1901. At the time of the 1930 census, he worked as a sprayer in a furniture factory in Mt. Airy. He died before 1965.

John L. Johnson (on far left in photograph) was born circa 1903, and was a veteran of World War I. In 1930, he was a cabinet worker in a furniture factory in Mt. Airy. His wife, Nora, is the center woman in the picture below. They had at least two children and lived in Richmond, Virginia. He died between 1956 and 1965.

Elijah Johnson was the youngest male child, born circa 1906. In 1930, he was a machinist in a furniture factory. He married after 1930, and his wife, Sally, is the woman standing on the left in the photograph to the right. In Jim's obituary of 1966, he was listed as living in Richmond, Virginia, and in 1976, in Fannie's obituary, as living in Castlewood, Virginia. (Center man in photograph above, 1956.)

From the Blue Ridges to the Sandhills: Four North Carolina Families /Lindsay and Martha White Johnson Family
© 2001, Glenda Alexander, updated May 2007        Standard copyright restrictions apply.