By Donna Halvorsen
South Portland, Maine
We Peterson High School kids lost a treasure when Roy Johnson, our blind English teacher, died so young so many years ago. He didn’t have time to spread his brilliance over all of us, but those who came under his influence will never forget him. He inspired us as no one had ever inspired us before. He told me I had to go to college, and so I did, working my way through the University of Minnesota and becoming a journalist. Other Peterson kids have their own stories to tell. But we kids knew even then that he didn’t do it alone. His wife Shirley not only cared for three children and managed a household but provided the eyes that Roy needed to help him correct papers and do the other work that sighted teachers need to do. And a revelation to most of us, even today, is that she worked as a nurse at the Rushford Clinic while her good friend, Donna Olson, cared for the Johnsons’ three young children on weekday afternoons.
Now Shirley is gone. She died on March 7 in Belmond, Iowa, where she and Roy and his brother Ron, whom Shirley later married, all grew up. She was 82. Ron died in July at age 90. “She was able to stay at home with me,” said Erin Johnson, Ron’s and Shirley’s daughter. “It was a time filled with music, stories, tears and love. She was never in any pain, which I am grateful for.”
“Her presence and behind-the-scenes help allowed Roy to do his job,” said Lila Johnson Peterson of the class of ‘62. “In a small school without a lot of opportunities, Roy stood out. We were all aware that Shirley was the person that made it possible. She was his true partner.”
“When we were in school, we knew that Shirley helped Roy with his papers, but I didn’t realize exactly how much work she did,” said Bev Johnson Helland, also of the class of ‘62. “I always thought Roy was such an exceptional person to be teaching when he couldn’t see.”
Bev was inspired for another reason: “When our youngest son, Mike, was born totally blind, being able to think about Roy gave me hope that he could live a productive life,” she said. “As he was growing up I realized there was a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ assistance needed. Mike relies totally on braille for reading (or technology when it’s available and works) so when he graduated high school and went to a broadcasting school, where there was no disability support, it was then that I realized what it took for a blind person to have access to their materials.
“This is where thoughts of Shirley came in,” said Bev, who became a teacher and renowned advocate for the blind. “For her to have little kids to take care of and still have the patience to read all the papers to Roy, I can’t imagine how she kept her sanity.
Dwight Boyum, also of ‘62, remembers attending play practices at the Johnson home. Yes, a blind teacher directing a class play, with, of course, Shirley’s help.
Roy died at 34 of complications from diabetes, which he had had since childhood. He began to go blind as a junior at St. Olaf College in Northfield and became totally blind just before graduation in 1960. He attended the Iowa State Commission for the Blind and began teaching at Peterson in the fall of 1961.
We Peterson kids had the good fortune to be his students because 50 school systems rejected him based on the discriminatory and inaccurate notion that “a blind man can’t teach.”