Interview with Elizabeth Clay Johnson, October 26, 2010

Interview Summary

In this interview Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, a widow, singer, piano player, and mother, talks about her life as a child and teen and having to go to work at an early age. Born in Lexington, Kentucky, the daughter of parents who were deaf, Mrs. Johnson learned sign language at an early age. Her parents had been students in Danville School for the Deaf (Colored section). When her parents divorced, Mrs. Johnson and her sister were placed in the Lexington Colored Orphanage for six years, while their brother, who is also deaf, remained with their father. Her mother moved to Virginia while her father remarried and took the girls out of the orphanage. Not long after, Mrs. Johnson went to live with her grandmother in Paris, Kentucky. Her sister followed, and when their grandmother became ill, Mrs. Johnson quit school in the tenth grade and went to work to support her sister and grandmother. When their grandmother's condition became critical, Mrs. Johnson went to live with a couple who were friends of her grandmother in Paris. Mrs. Johnson has worked as a hospital nurse technician in delivery, and managed the cafeteria at an elementary school in the Bourbon County School system. She is the mother of three children, grandmother of five, and great-grandmother of two. Mrs. Johnson volunteers with the church alliance organization in Paris that helps those in need.

Interview Keyword

African Americans in Kentucky Bourbon County, Kentucky Church community deaf family grandmother great-grandmother mother Nursing orphan orphanage piano player Race relations racial prejudice school school cafeteria Segregation sharing sign language singer single woman widow

Interview LC Subject

African American families African Americans. Bourbon County (Ky.) Johnson, Elizabeth Clay Johnson, Elizabeth Clay--Interviews

Interview Rights

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Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.