Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510090007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-21 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PRICES FORK LENGTH: Medium
As with her other books, she'll sell it directly to people who come by her forlorn bookstore at this tiny crossroads - or she'll deliver a few to local bookstores personally.
It's a low-key promotional routine that's become commonplace to the New River Valley's most prolific little-known author.
The Kentland Farm book is Johnson's 15th, all focused on the region's vivid history. Readable and informative, they've all been published with her own money, using the meager revenue from the previous book to fund the next.
She's probably the foremost expert on the New River Valley's history, yet Johnson can't recall being invited to speak to a college class or to autograph copies at a bookstore.
Personal anonymity is something Johnson has learned to accept. What she can't understand is why so many people know - or care - so little about the history of the place where they live and work.
"I'm amazed. It makes me wonder why this region back here behind the mountains is so ignored," she says.
Johnson has accepted the responsibility of filling the void. She's researched and written about Indians, pioneers and Civil War soldiers, all of whom tromped through here in olden days.
"I always say this is the last one," she sighs. Soon enough she'll find herself back at a library, thumbing through old records, or back at the keyboard of her word processor.
Her pursuit is not about making a living, which Johnson says would be out of the question, given the way her books sell. It's more to satisfy her natural curiosity and to illuminate the forgotten past.
She grew up in Christiansburg discussing history with her mother, Lula Porterfield Givens, a longtime teacher and published local historian in her own right.
The family stories and adventurous tales they shared whetted Johnson's appetite. "Some people like math, so they study math. I liked history," she explains.
After earning history degrees at the University of Texas and the College of William and Mary, Johnson taught school in various places while her husband, Walt, served in the Air Force.
They came home about 15 years ago when he retired, and bought and restored the historic Price residence where they live today in the village of Prices Fork.
She began to write in her husband's absence. "All these books I write are about family roots," she says. Her ancestors, who have lived along the New River for 250 years, crossed paths with prominent people - and occasionally made a little history of their own.
For example, the story of her Giles County kinsman (who, like many other mountain folk, was a Union sympathizer) is woven throughout Johnson's Civil War book about the New River Valley campaign of 1864.
The book tells a vivid story of the major battle at Cloyd's Mountain, the burning of the railroad bridge at present-day Radford and the raids of hungry Yankee soldiers through Montgomery and Giles counties. Yet the book - like the events of the Civil War campaign - remains largely overlooked.
Still, she perseveres. The books sometimes take years to research and write. But Johnson says she loves the effort, despite the toll on her eyesight.
She's a frequent speaker before small community groups interested in history or genealogy. And many people have driven by her small frame bookshop, which bears the sign "New River Books," near her home.
"I just store books in there. I don't know how to run a bookstore," she says. So the sign is mostly for show.
Of her devoted work, she says, "I do it in the most professional way I can." Local history won't be preserved if local people don't do it, she believes.
Awareness of the past and its role in the present and future might be more acute if public schools placed more emphasis on local history.
Until or unless that happens, Johnson will fill in. "It's what I do," she says.
by CNB