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Article: Joseph Johnson, 100, funeral home owner, church leader
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- September 20, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2003 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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His mother could barely read or write but she was determined
Joseph Tillman Johnson was going to have a better education than she
had, and he was going to make something of himself.
Mr. Johnson did. He graduated from college, sold insurance, built
his own funeral home on the North Side, was a leader in the United
Methodist Church and a mainstay of Wiley College in Marshall, Texas.
He died Sept. 10 at his Near North Side home. He was 100.
He was born Sept. 18, 1902, in DeSoto, Miss., the son of Jack and
Mary Jackson. His father left when he was 4 and his mother moved with
him to live with her mother in Texas. She worked as a house servant,
cooking and cleaning. Her employers didn't want her ...