Nannie and Alice Johnson
Nannie Johnston Johnson
HEAD COOK, 1915-1919
Mother of Alice Johnson
According to her great-grandson, Eugene Jones, and her great-granddaughter Amy Harris, Nannie J. Johnson (born prior to 1862) worked as a cook for the Dooleys at Maymont House. Family tradition also indicates that her daughter, Alice Johnson, worked at Maymont, probably as second cook, during the same period. Nannie married William Johnson some time in the mid-1870s.
Alice Johnson
KITCHEN MAID / SECOND COOK, 1915-1919
Daughter of Nannie Johnson
According to her grandson Eugene Jones and granddaughter Amy Harris, Alice Johnson Lewis (April 1879-October 1938) worked for the Dooleys at Maymont House. She likely served in the position of second cook under the supervision of her mother, Nannie Johnson. Around 1895, Alice married Washington Lewis, with whom she had three children: Lelia, Inez and Charles. With her second husband, General Johnson, whom she married around 1911, she had three more children: Maria, Nannie and John. The 1920 census records describe her as a forty-one-year-old, literate black woman who earned wages in her home as a laundress.
The Johnson family resided at 1322 Claiborne Street in the Randolph neighborhood near Maymont. Mrs. Johnson died in 1938 at age fifty-nine and was interred at Evergreen Cemetery.