Georgia Ruth Johnston

Funeral services for Georgia Ruth Johnston, 88, of Gladewater will be 2:00 Sunday, May 20, 2018, at the First Baptist Church in Gladewater with Bro. Bailey Harris officiating. Interment will follow at Rosedale Cemetery. Mrs. Johnston passed away Friday, May 18, 2018, in Gladewater.
Georgia Ruth Johnston was born April 14, 1930, in Dublin, Arkansas. She grew up in Clarksville, Arkansas, one of five children, daughter of George Cleveland White and Bessie Mae Anderson White. At age fourteen she began working at St. Hildegarde’s Hospital in Clarksville, managed by the Benedictine nuns, who trained her to be a laboratory and X-ray technician. While working with the Benedictine sisters, Georgia Ruth attended the College of the Ozarks in Clarksville. After her junior year as a biology major, her sister, in Gladewater, suggested that she move to the town for one year to work for a newly established general medicine practice, Bloom McKenzie Clinic. During that year, she lived in a room in Mrs. Decker’s house, walked everywhere around town, most frequently to the First Baptist Church. There she met the young director of the youth choir, O.G. Johnston. Within the year, they were engaged to be married. O.G., in the first of many stands he took for the education of his family, agreed that Georgia Ruth should return to the College of the Ozarks to complete her degree. She did, graduating in 1953. A few days after graduation, on June 20, she and O.G. married.
Georgia Ruth continued her career as a medical technician with Drs. Bloom and McKenzie for a decade, with time off to give birth to her two daughters. She then decided to change careers and join the ranks of educators in the family. She returned to college and began teaching second grade at Union Grove school district in the mid-sixties. She earned her M.A. in education from Stephen F. Austin University and her Reading Specialist Certification from the University of Texas at Tyler. In 1971 she accepted a position teaching sixth grade reading in the Gladewater school district and moved to Gladewater high school to teach reading in 1979. She taught both reading for students with learning disabilities and the advanced honors reading course. She retired in 1991 and continued to tutor students privately for a decade following retirement. She was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, the honorary teacher society.
Primarily through the First Baptist Church in Gladewater, Georgia Ruth lived a life of service. She rang bells in the hand bell choir, served on the history of the church committee, was a member of the Woman’s Missionary Union, worked with Mission Friends, Acteens, Vacation Bible School, Youth Choir, and taught Sunday school. She was always available for any social function, serving cake and punch at many weddings and showers. Like her husband O.G., she tended the yard enthusiastically. She was a Texas Certified Master Gardener and a member of the Garden Club. Georgia Ruth never met a stranger; she was gregarious and deeply engaged in the lives of others.
Georgia Ruth is survived by two daughters, Carol Ann Johnston of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Donna Niehus of Sherman, Texas, and two granddaughters, Katie Lauren Niehus and Karlie Jo Niehus. Memorial donations may be given to the First Baptist Church, Gladewater, Texas, or the College of the Ozarks, Clarksville, Arkansas.