Obituary: Ann Louise Johnson
Ann Louise Johnson
June 16, 1929 – September 20, 2020
90 Years of age
A memorial graveside service for Ann Louise Johnson will be at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at Leland-Stoneville Cemetery. A memorial Mass will be at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at St. James Catholic Church in Leland.
Ann died on September 20, 2020. Our family is grateful to now fulfill her wish to be laid to rest in her hometown of Leland, next to her parents, with all five of her nephews at her side as she returns home.
Ann was born on June 16, 1929, at Mt. Carmel Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. In 1930, her parents, Dr. Howard Johnson and Mrs. Helen Johnson, moved into a home in Arlington, Virginia, where Ann grew up with her younger sister, Helen Jean, and her two brothers, Howard Jr. and Richard. Dr. and Mrs. Johnson were loving and devoted parents who provided generously for their four children. Dr. Johnson worked as a plant pathologist at the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., and Helen was a homemaker who dedicated herself to raising the children. All four children attended St. Charles Catholic Grade School in Arlington, Virginia, and Ann later attended Holy Trinity School in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
In September 1946, when Ann was a junior in high school, Dr. Johnson accepted a transfer to serve as a USDA researcher at the Delta Branch Experiment Station in Stoneville. The family moved to Leland, where they lived for nearly 50 years in a brick home at 402 Garrison Street. Moving to a small town in Mississippi was an adjustment for the whole family, but it was there, in the Delta, that Ann spent the greater part of her life and came to call home.
After graduating from St. Joseph’s High School in Greenville, Ann earned a degree in Education from Delta State Teachers College in Cleveland, Mississippi, in 1951. She taught for a time before returning to Leland, where she remained until the deaths of her parents in 1988 and 1991. During her nearly 50 years in Leland, she worked and volunteered at St. James Church and spent time working at the Leland Progress. She devoted herself to caring for her parents, tending to Dr. and Mrs. Johnson in their later years with patience, kindness, and love. Hers was a life of quiet, steady devotion — to the Lord and to the family she served all her days.
Following the deaths of her parents, Ann moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1996 to be near her brother, Father Howard Johnson, a Roman Catholic priest and chaplain in the U.S. Army. Father Johnson had been ordained at St. James Church in Leland, in the Diocese of Jackson, on May 26, 1960. When Father Johnson fell ill in 2019, Ann cared for her brother dutifully and lovingly, just as she had cared for her parents.
Ann was predeceased by her brother Richard, who died on March 2, 1988, and was the father of Joseph, Howard, and John; her sister, Jean, who died on February 18, 1993, and was the mother of Paul and Mark; and her brother, Father Howard, who died on March 20, 2020. Ann is survived by her five nephews (Joseph, Howard, John, Paul, and Mark) and their families.
Those who knew Ann remember her deep faith in the Lord, along with the many simple habits that reflected who she was. She was a lifelong reader who never lost her ties to the Delta, continuing to read the Leland Progress until the time of her death. She was a devoted writer of letters and cards, never forgetting a birthday, special occasion, or a chance to send a note to someone she loved. Her nieces and nephews, and later their children, grew up knowing they were remembered through her gifts and warm words over the years. Ann was also an avid walker, often seen along the banks of Deer Creek and, later, throughout her Maryland neighborhood on the long walks she took nearly every day.
Ann’s love was expressed not in grand gestures, but in faithful acts – in her prayers, in the letters and cards that always arrived on time, in her walks, and above all in the tender care she gave so freely to her parents, her brother, and her family. She is deeply missed and lovingly remembered.
