Episcopal Lives:
Dorothy Johnson: Nose for News in the Pews
By Deirdre Steinberg
Dec 1, 2005, 13:31

Dorothy Johnson

She dispenses quaint and delightful colloquialisms enthusiastically—and often. Dorothy Johnson thinks of herself as “a rose from Poseyville,” meaning she grew up in Roseburg, Oregon in the early part of the twentieth century. She calls her son, Roger, now sixty-two years old and a grandfather himself, “my boy” and declares that he’s “more fun than a picnic.” She’s told a priest or two “what’s for” over the years and even hosted a roast of an Oregon bishop (Matthew Paul Bigliardi) back in the 1980s.

Johnson, who will turn ninety-six in September, just retired after more than a decade as the editor of the ever-popular Ascension, Portland’s “Pew News,” an airy-toned column that told of the comings and goings, births, marriages, graduations, deaths, and other life-cycle events of Portland’s small southwest hills church. A recent example from her last column (December 2004) read:

“Just returned from a cruise from Montreal to Norfolk, Virginia, Dr. Michael and Virginia Henry have not made Christmas plans yet. Their recent rip included historic Williamsburg where they attended services in a century-old church building.
Lem and Jane Ellen Nelson celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary I September. Their family tradition is not exchanging fits among themselves, but to give to their favorite charities. They have small get-together during the holidays instead of one big celebration."

And how did our intrepid church journalist find the scoops month after month? Elementary, my dear Lois Lane: “I have diabetes,” explains Johnson, “so I don’t eat between meals. That means I can go around and talk to people for the whole coffee hour after services on Sunday. You find out a lot that way, especially when you’re not stuffing your face.”

Although she would never call herself a feminist (in fact she opposed the ordination of women), Johnson has been a female Episcopal trailblazer. She was the first woman elected to the diocesan standing committee. When her term ended, she served as the committee’s recorder for the next fourteen years. Johnson estimates that she’s been to at least twenty-five diocesan conventions and was one of the first women from Oregon (and for that matter, the nation) to attend a General Convention.

Johnson’s leadership, though quiet, has been a constant in the diocese for more than four decades. She is an extremely organized leader. For example, when she was elected president of the women’s guild at St. Michael and All Angels, Portland after World War II (when she and her husband, Kermit, became Episcopalians), the first thing she did was to schedule every single meeting date for the next two years. “I didn’t think of it as organized, but everyone else did, so maybe I am,” she confesses. Other diocesan offices included a stint as president of the diocesan women’s organization (when male and female leadership roles were separated in the diocese), a member of the national United Thank Offering board, a member of the board of directors of Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland, and a member of the board of trustees of William Temple House, also in Portland.

“I never lost an election,” Johnson says proudly, “but then I never sought them either. I don’t know why but people kept nominating me for things,” she adds modestly.

As she nears the century mark, Johnson admits that living long is a ying/yang kind of proposition. “On the one hand, I’ve seen so much and had such a wonderful life,” she muses, “but the tragedy of living a long time is that so many your friends and family pass on.”

Johnson takes extraordinarily good care of herself. She eats healthfully, her one-bedroom apartment is immaculate, she dresses to perfection in tailored blouses and grey hip- hugging skirts that show off her enviable figure, she has several “young male friends in their seventies” who take her to lunch and would rather “listen to my jokes than tell their own dirty ones when I’m not there,” and she works out every morning on a treadmill in her apartment building’s gym.

Although she’s been a widow for almost forty years, she has a loving and extended family. Her daughter, Janelle, lives in Seattle and her son lives in Georgia. Both son and daughter have their own children and grandchildren, making her a great grandmother five times over. She loves to talk about her clan and has a family portrait that was taken on her ninetieth birthday prominently displayed in her home. “I feel as if I have two families,” she explains “my kin and the church. And both are very important to me.”