Doc Johnson
My mother-in-law, Rosa Winebarger, says of her grandfather Hoy Monroe “Doc” Johnson, “I was his pet.”
Doc tended a small farm on the upper side of New River. He never owned a car but used an old mule for transportation and to work the farm. He’d ride the old mule out to get firewood, cut down a tree, then hitch the mule to the tree to drag it back for splitting. One day he went out, got his mule hitched to a tree, hopped on the mule, and for reasons unknown the mule got scared and ran away, dragging the tree, with Doc hanging on for dear life.
Doc’s first wife died during childbirth in 1923, leaving him with nine children to raise. In due time, he went looking for a bride and found Minnie Crowson, who lived across the river on another small farm. After courting her for an appropriate time, she and Doc got married, but she insisted on staying on her farm and Doc insisted on staying on his. She wouldn’t move in with him because he lived across the river, and he wouldn’t move in with her because he said her land was so poor he couldn’t grow anything on it.
Doc would ride his mule to visit her when he took a notion. Rosa says that she and others would see him heading out and would holler and ask him where he was going, and he’d say, “Going to see Nig.” Rosa has no idea where he got the name “Nig” for his bride, but that’s what he called her.
They never did live in the same house together. I wonder: Could the fact that he had nine children, and she had never married and had no children, have been a factor in her decision?
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