{"id":508957,"date":"2010-04-02T22:22:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-03T02:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=9133"},"modified":"2010-04-02T22:22:33","modified_gmt":"2010-04-03T02:22:33","slug":"it-is-well-with-my-soul-the-extraordinary-life-of-a-106-year-old-woman-by-ella-mae-johnson-with-patricia-mulcahy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/508957","title":{"rendered":"It Is Well with My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year-Old Woman by Ella Mae Johnson with Patricia Mulcahy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cSome of the things in this book happened a hundred years ago…. I never anticipated having to remember all this,\u201d says Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson as she opens her memoir, It Is Well with My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year-Old Woman<\/em>, written with Patricia Mulcahy. \u00dcber-centenarian Johnson recalled more than most people half her age. Sadly, her readers can\u2019t expect a sequel to her delightfully plain-spoken memoir as she passed away on March 22. (The memoir\u2019s original publication date in May was quickly pushed up, making the book available now.)<\/p>\n

Born Jan. 13, 1904, in Dallas at a time when \u201cblack citizens had no official papers,\u201d Johnson was raised by her next-door neighbors, the Davis family, after the death of her mother. \u201cEverything in the Davis environment left me certain I was loved,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

Yet despite a nurturing home environment, in many ways Johnson\u2019s early years were harsh ones. Growing up poor but never needy, she couldn\u2019t escape the helpless humiliation faced by \u201cblacks, or Negroes, or colored people, or whatever they called us.\u201d She watched as \u201csome things were out of Papa\u2019s control,\u201d how adults \u201chad to lie in order to survive,\u201d and the \u201cmany ways in which we were put in our place in the Jim Crow South.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson graduated salutatorian to her valedictorian best friend from Dallas Colored High School and, in 1921, entered Fisk University, a historically African- American college in Tennessee. During an art class in her senior year, Johnson painted a copy of a picture based on the biblical story of the “The Good Samaritan”: \u201cMy entire life has been driven by my emotional and spiritual response to the picture, and the message of compassion it communicates,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

Johnson finished Fisk six months later than anticipated because she missed a semester participating in a college-wide boycott orchestrated by legendary Fisk graduate W.E.B. Du Bois who \u201cagitate[d] for the rights of his people, whatever they wanted to call us \u2013 Negro, colored, black.\u201d Lest you think Johnson a lemming, even in a clear battle for civil rights, she feistily adds, \u201cI don\u2019t follow just because someone else decides to lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

After working briefly for the Congregational Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, Johnson arrived in Ohio \u2013 where she would live the rest of her life \u2013 as one of only two minority students admitted each year at Western Reserve University\u2019s School of Applied Social Science. Decades later, the school was renamed Case Western Reserve University, and Johnson was recognized (until her recent death) as the oldest living African-American graduate of CWRU. … [click here for more<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>: Christian Science Monitor<\/em>, April 2, 2010<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult, Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n

Filed under: ..Adult Readers<\/a>, ..Young Adult Readers<\/a>, .Memoir<\/a>, .Nonfiction<\/a>, African American<\/a> Tagged: Civil rights<\/a>, Family<\/a>, Friendship<\/a>, Historical<\/a>, Parent\/child relationship<\/a>, Race<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSome of the things in this book happened a hundred years ago…. I never anticipated having to remember all this,\u201d says Ella Mae Cheeks Johnson as she opens her memoir, It Is Well with My Soul: The Extraordinary Life of a 106-Year-Old Woman, written with Patricia Mulcahy. \u00dcber-centenarian Johnson recalled more than most people half […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2824,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2824"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}