Virginia Johnson

Funeral services for Virginia Pearce Johnson (Mrs. Walter F. Johnson) will be held at St. Paul United Methodist Church on Wednesday, October 15, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. with the Rev. Greg Kennedy presiding. Burial will follow in Elmwood Memorial Park. The family will receive friends from 5:00 until 7:00 p.m. Tuesday evening at The Hamil Family Funeral Home, 6449 Buffalo Gap Road. Virginia was born on September 14, 1921, in Moscow, TN, to William and Clora Rogers Pearce, and died in Shreveport, LA, on October 4, 2008, after a brief illness. She grew up in San Antonio, TX, and graduated from Brackenridge High School in 1939. In June of 1943, Virginia met a young Air Corp officer named Walter Johnson at a dude ranch in Bandera, TX, and the two were married on January 31, 1944, in San Antonio. The couple moved to Abilene in January 1954 when Walter accepted the position of president of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, which under his leadership later became the First National Bank and recently, First Financial Bank. After Walter died in December of 2004, Virginia continued to live in Abilene until last April when she reluctantly agreed to move to an apartment in Shreveport, LA, to be close to her son Chris. She loved Abilene and the many friends she has there and she missed it greatly. Walter, her beloved husband of 61 years; her parents William and Clora; her brother John Pearce and sister Billy Dean Peters; and her daughter-in-law Anne Walker Johnson, preceded Virginia in death. She is survived by three sisters, Wilma Black of Austin, TX, Mary Eleanor Etter of San Antonio, TX, and Dorothy Kachtik of Southwick, MA; two sons, Walter Fred Johnson, Jr. and wife, Susan, of Charlotte, NC, and Larry Chris Johnson of Shreveport, LA; five grandchildren, Brian Johnson and wife Gail, Lila Johnson Knicely and husband Jeremy, Eric, Kevin, and Elizabeth Johnson; one great-grandson, Alan Johnson; brother-in-law Calvin Johnson and wife Irene of Lyford, TX; and by numerous nieces and nephews. Virginia was an active volunteer in several Abilene community service and social organizations through her life here, including the Abilene YWCA, Abilene Woman's Club, Day Nursery of Abilene, West Texas Rehab, the Cotillion Club, and numerous others, serving tirelessly on the boards and various committees of several of these organizations and generously volunteering her time on so many others. She helped organize and was a long time co-chair of the YWCA rummage and bake sale fundraisers, gathering merchandise and baking endless numbers of chicken crepes and cheese crackers that were highly sought after at those sales. Virginia's hobbies included golf, tennis and bridge but her passion was her yard on Tanglewood where she created and tended a terraced kaleidoscope of flowering plants and bulbs on the creek bank behind her home. There she loved to entertain friends or watch the neighborhood children play and occasionally sled after a good snow. She also grew numerous wild cherry trees there and, barring a late freeze, her friends and neighbors could look forward to a delicious jar of her homemade wild cherry jelly. In lieu of flowers the family suggests that donations be made to the Hendrick Home for Children, PO Box 5195, Abilene, TX 79608; St. Paul United Methodist Church, 525 Beech St., Abilene, TX 79601; McMurry University, PO Box 938, Abilene, TX 79697; or the charity of donor's choice.