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Ruth relaxes in the home she and Jay
began building in 1953. |
Ruth Johnsonius was a Kentucky girl before her Cumberland
Presbyterian faith brought her, via Bethel College, to
McKenzie in 1945, where she met her husband and settled down
to raise four children. She provided homemaking skills to
many more children as first Huntingdon and then McKenzie's
high school home economics teacher from 1967 'til 1988.
Before that, the biggest fortune of her family's life was
the Ohio Valley Flood of February 2, 1937, when she was ten
years old. Over 90 percent of Ruth's hometown of Paducah was
affected, and rising flood waters mixed with snow and frigid
temperatures made for misery as residents were evacuated.
"My father was so sure the rains would stop that we stayed
to the last minute," she says, noting her family was last
out and first to return during the calamity. With water
lapping over the boards of the front porch and certain to
continue rising, she said, "I can remember the Jon boat
coming right up to the front porch to get us. When you live
through a flood, you never forget what it is like."
She recalls getting into the boat with her parents (J.E. (Eathern)
and Roxie Skellion), two sisters, her brother and the family
dog, with one trunk of belongings. When they reached the
edge of the water, Health Department workers were waiting to
administer injections against typhoid.
"We all got sick from the shot," Ruth says.
The return home was as traumatic as their departure, finding
their bird dead in its cage and so many ruined possessions
to dispose of. No amount of paint would conceal the mudline
that seeped through every layer on walls thus permanently
marked.
"The Red Cross had to help everybody," says Ruth, recalling
every family was provided a certain amount of new furniture
to replace damaged items.
Her father, a trucker, began hauling furniture from St.
Louis back to furniture stores in Paducah. After the second
trip, he got wise, rented a building and started his own
furniture store.
"Our whole family pitched in and worked on it," says Ruth.
"So I have every love in the world for the Red Cross, it
really changed our life... a lot of these folks will see
change for the better, too," she continues, referring to
citizens affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and
mentioning work being accomplished by Habitat for Humanity
in the affected states.
Born on August 31, 1926, in Paducah, Ruth's earlier life,
while otherwise stable, was nevertheless filled with move
after move as her parents improved their lot in life.
"I went to every school in Paducah," she chuckles. "Each
time we would improve our standard of living we moved."
By the time she was in the third grade, she had attended
Franklin, Clay, Lee, and Whittier schools, staying at
Whittier through the sixth grade.
It was when she entered seventh grade at Washington
Junior High School that she really began to enjoy classes,
as her favorite subject--home economics--was offered from
the seventh through 12th grades in Paducah. She'd known
"from birth," she says, that she was destined to be a
teacher of home economics.
"My entire life was centered around home economics," she
says. "Our mother's sewing machine never went down at home;
she was always reading or sewing. When I'd get home from
school she'd have on a crisp, ironed cotton dress. She was
always home when we got home from school and I think that
was important."
Later, at Tilghman High School, one of her home economics
teachers, Lenore Nessle Moore, was her mentor.
"I thought I was in heaven," she says. "Her husband was in
the Navy during World War II, and she never really wanted to
go home to an empty house, so when I wasn't working with
Daddy, I'd stay with her 'til it got too dark. She taught me
so much; she'd buy fine wool and make bound buttonholes...
She was restoring a big, old house and she'd take a bunch of
us girls out there and let us paint; we were always doing
fun things.
"I still think Tilghman was the greatest," she adds.
In the meantime, the hardware section of the furniture store
had become such a success that Ruth's father opened a
hardware store downtown on March 17, 1945, during Ruth's
senior year of high school. His innovative use of radio as a
mode of advertisement--15- to 30-minute programs featuring
"hillbilly music"--was so successful that two pages were
devoted to the store and its ad campaigns in the May, 1945
issue of Southern Hardware magazine.
Having grown up in the Margaret Hank Memorial Church, after
high school Ruth came to McKenzie to attend Cumberland
Presbyterian-affiliated Bethel College.
"It was a very, very small school in the fall of '45," she
says.
In McKenzie, she met J.B. Johnsonius on a blind date during
which they strolled the banks of Clear Lake in Macedonia.
"Both of us knew that day that we were exactly what we were
looking for," says Ruth. "Actually," she continues, with a
chuckle, "I went back to the dorm and said, 'I want him and
I'm going to get him'... but it took three years for him to
think that it was all his idea."
J.B., who Ruth refers to as Jay, was a local boy with his
own interesting roots. His grandfather, J.J.B. Johnsonius,
who emigrated from Holland in 1878 at the age of 19 and was
the son of a minister to the court of Holland, represented
Henry County in the legislature of Tennessee in 1900 and
1910, during the passionate years of prohibition. He later
served as immigration commissioner of Tennessee and was Red
Cross chairman for Henry County during World War I.
J.B.'s grandmother, Cornelia Veltman, was also from Holland.
Her sister, Henrietta Veltman (1881-1960), one of the first
women doctors in the area, is documented to have delivered
over four thousand babies during her fifty years of
practice.
"She wore hair under a hat to get into medical school," says
Ruth, describing as well the manly attire she wore for the
occasion.
J.B. moved from Paris to McKenzie at the age of five with
his parents, Donna and Hobson Johnsonius, who owned
Johnsonius Tin Shop. The shop catered to metal pipe
fabrication, the construction and repair of metal coal
scuttles and buckets, and roofing.
J.B. as well as his sister, Bonna Jean, helped in the store
until J.B. left during World War II, working first for the
Glen L. Martin Aircraft Company in Baltimore, Maryland and
then as an aerial photographer in the Army Air Corps aboard
B-17s and B-29s. The missions were flown from the island of
Tinian, just north of Guam in the western Pacific.
The island served as a base for the planes that flew 1500
miles to Japan and back on bombing raids, and was also the
base from which the Enola Gay delivered the first atomic
bomb to Japan on August 6, 1945, to influence the Allied
victory of World War II.
J.B. and Ruth met in February, just a month after he
returned from the war in 1946.
"They sent him home for me, that's all there was to it,"
Ruth says with girlish laughter.
Ruth and J.B. on the day they
met in February, 1946.
She spent her second year of college at Murray State in
Kentucky. J.B. would come visit every other weekend,
bringing a little boat for jaunts to Kentucky Lake.
Alternate weekends, Ruth went home to Paducah.
They were married on December 26, 1948, at 3:00 p.m.,
mirroring the date and time of her parents' wedding.
"Christmas we'll be married 57 years," she says, home
briefly from the hospital where J.B. was recovering from a
heart attack suffered Monday morning. "That's a long time."
Jay's health problems gave Ruth good cause to look back over
years full of good times.
"I can't complain, our life's been so full; there's no way I
can complain." She says, launching into a love story as
endearing as a fairy tale.
First came their honeymoon to St. Louis.
"There was an ice storm and we didn't know it," she
chuckles. "We just went right through the storm. We wondered
why the toll bridge was closed and we didn't have to pay.
There was no traffic on the road," she shrugs with a
sheepish grin, "but our parents didn't tell us not to go."
When they arrived at their hotel, the staff was astonished
that they had come through the storm unscathed.
Back in McKenzie, they rented an apartment in a duplex
located where the old bowling alley now stands, on Highland
Drive next door to the old Gary Simmons dealership.
"I thought I was so far out in the country, I couldn't stand
it," she declares. "We stayed there six months and then I
walked to town and found us an apartment on Cherry Street
with Vera Beadles.
The couple lived in one side of the Beadles' home until
1953, through the births of their first two children, J.B.
Jr. and Victoria Ruth (Vicki), when they decided to build
their own home after Jay had arrived home from work to
discover Ruth in tears.
"I thought it was the end of the world," she says. "Our rent
had gone up from $40 to $50 per month. That was a lot in
those days.
"Jay said to me, 'Would you be willing for us to build our
own house with these four hands?' It sounded great at the
time, but little did I know..."
The pair put up four walls on a lot they had already
purchased on Smith Street in McKenzie, and moved in. Every
evening after the babies were asleep, they would turn on
their transistor radio and go to work on the house.
Soon, two more babies came along, Teresa (Teri) in 1954, and
John Hobson (Hoppy) in 1960. As the children grew older,
there were jobs for them to do, as well.
"We finished three times and then we'd start to add on,"
says Ruth of the uniquely designed home.
When Hoppy was 11 months old, with Jay's blessing, Ruth
decided to continue her education.
"I picked out the job I would love to have, and got myself
qualified for it," says Ruth, who, in addition to being a
mom and homemaker had previously designed and sewed custom
drapes and did interior design for local customers.
She began her studies by taking evening classes at Bethel
over a three year period. That is where, she says, she
learned one of the greatest lessons of her life.
"I was in class and the teacher (Red Summers) said some
people live too much in the past, some live in the future,
but most people don't live in the present. He said we really
should live in the present and not the past or the future.
It hit me like a ton of bricks because we were always "gonna
do."
She went home and said, "Jay, we've never had a real
vacation. We're going to start taking them."
"We can't afford it," he protested.
"Oh, yes we can," was Ruth's determined response.
"Every week out of the grocery money I'd buy picnic stuff or
put money back," she said. "That year, we went to Florida
and every year after that we took a big vacation with the
children. You do what you set your mind to do, and you never
miss it that way."
When Hoppy was four years old, shestarted commuting to
Murray for home economics classes. Oddly enough by today's
standards, she was required to live in the home management
class, despite the fact that she was married and the mother
of four children.
Nevertheless, she refused to stay overnight, and would call
home after dinner guests had left to let Jay know she was on
her way home in their old '56 station wagon, which had
already traveled over 100,000 miles. The family would be
watching for her when she got home.
Despite the strict rules of the home economics program and
classes that began at 7 a.m., Ruth says, "It was the best
decision I ever made, to go back and get my degree. Jay
encouraged me and the children did, too; you've got to have
everybody encouraging you or you can't do it."
She received her bachelor's degree from Murray State in 1967
only to discover the job she wanted was not available in
McKenzie, so she went to work in Huntingdon for the first
two years of her teaching career, then worked at McKenzie
High School for 19 years.
Near the end of her career, in the mid-80s, Ruth says, "One
of the best things happened." Dr. Fereshteh Mahootchi, as a
requirement of her employment at the University of
Tennessee-Martin, chose Ruth with whom to complete 200 hours
of high school teaching experience.
"She was from Iran--she always said Persia," says Ruth,
stretching out the word, with a "sh" instead of a "zh" sound
at the end.
"She was so brilliant," she continues. "Working with her was
the best education I ever had; better than any college class
or anything I'd ever had, and I had the honor of serving
those 200 hours with her."
With enthusiasm, she tells how Dr. Mahootchi, as she always
called her, had worked in Iran under a tailor and was able
to share professional points of clothing construction as
well as other ideas that, Ruth says, "You just don't find in
books."
"Every unit we would get into, she would share what she had
brought over, and she was just so brilliant and just so good
with my girls," she says.
Ruth retired from teaching in 1988, going to work that day
with Jay in the shop that was by then known as Johnsonius
Sheet Metal Co., and where she had also worked in former
years. J.B. had purchased the shop from his father in 1967.
It was one of the oldest Lennox dealerships in the country,
from 1929-95, and one of the oldest family-owned businesses
in McKenzie.
J.B. Jr.'s dental office is now located in the building at
14815 Highland Drive in McKenzie. His main office is in
Paris. He is married to Dr. Jenny (Ross) Johnsonius who
heads the nursing program at Bethel. They are the parents of
two children.
Both of the Johnsonius daughters followed their mother's
footsteps into careers in education. Vicki is a teacher in
San Antonio. She and husband George Hatcher have two
children. Teri teaches school in Calvert City, Kentucky,
where she and husband Lloyd Ford also have two children.
Hoppy and wife Kim (Dunning) have four children. They work
in the hardwood division of Replogle Lumber Company.
In years past, the Johnsoniuses loved to travel, and were
able to go on several exotic vacations thanks to the Lennox
Company.
"When we went to Jamaica, it was the first time we'd been
anywhere without the children in a long time," says Ruth of
the trip taken when she was about 45 years old. "We just had
a ball, we felt so free over there."
They took several trips to Jamaica and Puerto Rico and also
visited Marco Island, as well as traveling to Colorado for
Jay's World War II reunion, plus trips to San Antonio a
couple of times a year to see Vicki and her family, until
the past two years.
"What I am most proud of are our four children--four sons
and daughters-in-law--and seven granddaughters and three
grandsons," she says.
Since her retirement, she has served as treasurer of the
First Presbyterian Church U.S.A. in McKenzie.
"This church is very important to our entire family," she
says, extolling the virtues of the small, tight-knit
congregation that she says welcomes newcomers as well. "My
husband's family were members since 1927 and I joined in
1948 when I married into the Johnsonius family."
Sharing photos accumulated over the years, she explains that
one, taken of her and J.B. on the day they met, at Clear
Lake, was only recently redeveloped from old negatives she'd
found.
It was the day they'd known they were meant to be.
"We've had a lot of good times," she smiles.
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