Her maiden name was Sallie Holt, and
she married my great-grandfather, Otis Johnson. My father didn’t seem
to know anything about her, and Dad died before I had the good sense
to ask more questions.
At first, I wasn’t sure if
she spelled her name Sally or Sallie. Her photograph depicted a stern
faced woman in her middle age. But photographs can be deceiving,
Since that lone photograph of my great-grandmother Sallie came into
my possession, I have managed to uncover a few facts, with the help of
the computer, Ancestry.com, old family letters, and emails from
Tennessee Johnson cousins.
Born in Tennessee, Sallie
married Otis Johnson in Sevier County in August 1904. She was just 17
years old. The next year she gave birth to my grandfather, Fred
Johnson, and the following year she gave birth to Hattie, with Paul
being born the year after that, and Marie being born a little over a
year after Paul. Four babies born before she was 23 years old. Yet,
that was often the fate of the young women of her generation, when
birth control was not an option.
Sallie gave birth again in
1911, to a stillborn baby boy. And in 1912, the young mother died. I
asked a Tennessee cousin, about Sallie’s death, and wondered if a
sixth pregnancy had caused her premature death. She wrote “When
Otis wife died, giving birth, my grandmother, Gladys Johnson (Otis’
sister) and her sisters, Myrtle, Maude, and Bulah were went to
Chaplin, Illinois to help with the children. They were all in their
teens except for Aunt Bulah who was only six. Their mother had passed
away also and Pat Johnson (Otis’ father) had remarried to a woman who
also had children and there was a lot of conflicts. The second wife
showed a lot of favoritism to her children. Most all of the boys had
already left for Illinois… I believe Sallie died giving birth also.”
According to census
information, Sallie and Otis were living in Morgan County, Chapin
Illinois by the time their first son was born in 1905. And it was at
the Chapin Cemetery, where the young wife and mother was laid to rest
just seven years later. Thirty-five years after her death, Otis would
be buried next to his bride.
I never knew (until I
recently began exploring the census records) that my grandfather Fred
Johnson and his siblings had been motherless. When I realized how
young Sallie had been when she died, my own daughter was just 24 years
old. Sallie had been just a year older when she left this world, and
she’d already had 4 children, and 5 or 6 pregnancies. My daughter had
just graduated from college, and while she wants to someday be a
mother, she has so many possibilities before her. Instead of seeing
Sallie as my great-grandmother, she was suddenly closer to my
daughter.
I really know very little
about Sallie’s family, other than they are from Tennessee. Yet, I
have a tidbit, gleamed from a letter from William Anderson (husband to
Marie Johnson, and uncle to my father, Walt Johnson) to my parents,
written in 1981. In reference to Sallie’s family, he wrote:
“If we get to go to
Florida we will stop and see Uncle Carl that’s Grandpa Johnson’s
stepbrother (Carl is actually half-brother to Otis) and find
out if he has pictures of Grandma Johnson’s pa and mother, there names
are Holt. Also will try and get a book like Uncle Carl has it is the
history of the Johnson in Tennessee and Kentucky very interesting to
read. . . Larry and Carol went down to Tennessee and Kentucky where
the grandparents homestead…There is so much to see down there about
the Holt family they homesteaded at Cutter’s Gap Tennessee. That was
theirs and no one entered with out the towns people knowing it when
they arrived they had 24 hours and had to leave that was the law what
a clan. I always wanted to see what was on the other side of the
mountain…
Was Sallie a simple
mountain girl? Was marriage and motherhood something she would have
chosen, or was it the only path offered to her? Who was Sallie Holt
Johnson?
When I look at her
photograph now, I imagine how a smile would have transformed her
appearance. She had a pretty face, hidden behind a stony expression.
But let her hair down, encourage her to smile, and I can almost see
that young woman, who had her entire life in front of her. Yet, if it
weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here now. And neither would my
daughter.
Sallie
Holt Johnson