Johnnie Mattie Howard

Johnnie was a southern girl, born in Opelousas, Louisiana on June 15, 1929 to Sam and Evelyn Stegall, the sixth of the eight surviving children: 1 boy and 7 girls- Dallas, Claudia, Ethel, Ruth, Bobbie, Johnnie, Verbie and Esther. She spent the first few years of her life on a farm in Opelousas, Louisiana. Then when she was about four years old the Stegalls moved to Palmetto, Louisiana to farm her grandmother’s farm.

Without any boys around- Dallas was gone and married for as long as Johnnie could remember, the girls went to work in the fields picking cotton as early as the age of five. Crops included corn, cotton, sugar cane, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, beans, and hay. Nothing went to waste. The family never bought food – their mother raised a vegetable garden behind the kitchen: peas, beans, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, carrots, radishes, eggplant, green beans, lima beans, okra, beets, and greens and they raised pigs, chickens, and cows for meat. What they did not use themselves was sold to the store in town or to neighboring families.

When Johnnie grew older, her father would pay her and her sisters for picking cotton or shoveling water furrows on Sundays. The girls used their money to buy material from the Sears and Montgomery Ward mail order catalogues. Since her mother made her clothing and there were always hand me downs, Johnnie did not have a store bought dress until she left home after high school. She attended Palmetto High, a two story building that housed grades one through eleven –there was no twelfth grade at the time. The school year began in September, but often she did not begin for another three to four weeks due to the cotton crops. She enjoyed school as a break from work on the farm which she still did both before and after school.

When she was not in school or working on the farm, Johnnie went to the Pentecostal church with her family Wednesday nights, Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings. She remembered when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the rationing of sugar, shoes and tires, but for the most part her life was not consciously affected by the war.

Life was hard and growing up on a farm during the Depression without electricity, indoor plumbing, and sometimes without much food taught her to value what she had later in life. But at the time, she did not realize she was poor because everyone else was poor as well.

When Johnnie was eight years old, her grandmother Stegall came for a visit- the only time she ever met her. While she was there, her grandmother wrote to the state capital for all the children’s birth certificates. When the certificates arrived, Johnnie’s read: Mattie Stegall—her legal name which she never used. When she was very small her parents had changed it to Johnnie but neglected to change the birth certificate!

At the age of sixteen, Johnnie graduated high school. Immediately after graduation, Johnnie moved to Ft. Worth, Texas to live in an apartment with her sisters Bobbie and Ruth, and her cousin Ivory and she worked as a waitress. While at a welcome home party from the service in the winter of 1946, Johnnie’s friend Delle introduced her to her brother, Cleon Maxwell Howard. Over the next year, their courtship ensued. They went out to dinner and dancing, movies, card parties, bowling, and parties. On October 7, 1947 they were married in a small ceremony at his sister Irene’s house where they had first met. Johnnie was just eighteen. Johnnie and Max bought their first home in Arlington Texas, and in 1949, their first child was born— Max Douglas Howard. Johnnie was happy to have a boy as her first child – like all of her sisters had done. During their time in Texas, Johnnie went to work for Pangburn’s Candy Company where she worked as a lead candy packer—a position she earned by being the “fastest candy packer in the West”.

In August 1955, Johnnie’s brother in law (Bobbie’s husband) convinced Max to take a job as office manager at his lumber company in Downey, California. Max and Johnnie rented then bought their house in Norwalk where she lived for over 50 years.

Shortly after arriving in California, Johnnie began looking for work. She wanted to work for a candy company like she had in Texas, so she interviewed at Helen Grace Candies. Johnnie had intended to find work in the factory, but Helen decided she liked Johnnie’s looks and wanted her to work as store manager in their new Los Altos store in Bellflower. The work was long and tiring, it was not uncommon for Johnnie to work twelve to fourteen hour days.

In 1958 Johnnie left work for a few months to have her second child Jonnine Loree Howard. Three weeks later she returned to work part time for the Easter holiday season before returning full time a few months later to manage a new store at the Stonewood Shopping Center in Downey. Over her 40 + years working for Helen Grace Johnnie managed and supervised many more Helen Grace stores.

She worked hard and raised her family. Every year, the Howards made a pilgrimage back home to Texas and Louisiana to see their families. They liked to get together and play cards with her sister Bobbie and her husband Vernon. They joined a bowling league. She and Max belonged to the Moose Lodge and they loved to dance. Johnnie liked to knit and crochet, and learned how to decorate cakes. Their son, Max Douglas moved to Canada and married Ella Mae Schlenker. They have 2 children, Matthew Douglas and Monica Irene. Their daughter Jonnine married Steven Luster, and they also have two children - Sarah Loree and Dylan Steven.

After 29 years of marriage, Max died in 1977. Johnnie kept working to pass the time and after a few years she returned to the Moose Lodge where she reunited with old friends. She and her girlfriends socialized, danced and went on cruises together. There she met her second husband, Leo Redmond, and Johnnie (temporarily) retired from Helen Grace. They split their time between his house in Pico Rivera and a vacation house she bought in Arizona close to Bullhead City and the Colorado River. Sadly, Leo only lived for a short time after they married and Johnnie returned to working at Helen Grace at holidays and split her time between her home in Norwalk and her place at “the River”. In 2002, she sold her place in Arizona. With the exception of trips to visit her sister Esther in Louisiana and her son Doug and his family in Canada, she spent the rest of her life in her Norwalk home, close to Jonnine and her family.

Those who knew Johnnie would say she was a force of nature— strong, positive, fun-loving, energetic, hard-working, resourceful, kind-hearted and generous.

We will miss her forever.