ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 6, 1996 TAG: 9609060014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER STAFF WRITER
The loss of Patricia Givens Johnson is already being felt. Ask Dorothy Bodell.
Among the phone calls Bodell received this week was one from somebody seeking a little information about local history.
Typically a call like that would have been directed to Johnson, a Giles County native who became one of the New River Valley's most informed and prolific local history experts. Johnson published 15 books during her 64 years.
Tuesday Johnson died at her Blacksburg home. She had been in failing health for some time. Her family did not wish to disclose the cause of death.
Now some of those information-seeking calls come to Bodell, a history buff in her own right. Both Bodell and Johnson were members of the Dr. Harvey Black Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Bodell wasn't able to answer this particular caller's question but, she said, she was able to steer the person in the right direction.
"Patricia would get calls and visits like that all the time," Bodell said.
Bodell and Johnson used to spend free time at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum in Newbern, where Ann Bailey serves as director.
Bailey stocks Johnson's books in the museum's gift shop. The books, she said, sell well. Many of Bailey's memories of Johnson come from the intermittent book restocking runs Johnson would make when her shelf space ran low. After delivering a new batch of local histories, Johnson would often stay and talk.
"She was an exuberant person," Bailey said. "She loved local history. She was constantly thinking about it and researching it.
"She loved the fact that she was uncovering things that local people didn't know," she said. "It seemed to bring great joy to her that she could print something no one else knew about."
Johnson is survived by her husband, Walter. The couple was married in December 1953, about six months after Johnson's run at the Ms. Virginia title. She tied for first place.
From there the two migrated along with Walter Johnson's U.S. Air Force career, living in Texas, Japan, England, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. It was while in the nation's capital that Patsy Johnson began to research and write history.
"She'd started the research while I was in Vietnam," Walter Johnson said. "My being in the war was driving her crazy."
In an interview published last year, Johnson said she wrote history not to make a living but to satisfy her natural curiosity and to illuminate the forgotten past. Her final book - "Kentland at Whitethorne" - came out last year and detailed the rich history of a large Montgomery County farm now owned by Virginia Tech.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Blacksburg Ward, 700 Porter St.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File 1995. Patricia Givens Johnson, who became one ofby CNBthe New River Valley's most informed and prolific local history
experts, published 15 books during her 64 years.