SPARKS QUARTERLY, December 1980, Whole No. 112, pp. 2256-57:
WILLIAM PERRY JOHNSON, 1918-1980
(View Photograph in scrapbook)
It is with deep personal sadness and regret that your President andEditor report the sudden death of William Perry Johnson on October 17,1980. Mr. Johnson was one of the founders of The Sparks FamilyAssociation and served from 1953 until his death as the Association’sHistorian-Genealogist.
William Perry Johnson was born on May 16, 1918, on a farm near Fairmount(Grant County) Indiana, the son of Carter Guy and Mary Evelyn (Seale)Johnson. His interest in genealogy began when he was only 16 years old(in 1934). He traced his paternal ancestry to Charles Johnson who marriedSusannah Sparks, daughter of Solomon Sparks, in Wilkes County, NorthCarolina, in 1784. Charles and Susannah (Sparks) Johnson were hisgreat-great-great-great-grandparents.
In 1936, Mr. Johnson moved to North Carolina where many of his ancestorshad lived in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries.He used to joke that he was probably the only 18-year-old in Americanhistory who ever ran away from home to search for his ancestors.
Mr. Johnson served in the United States Army from June 1942 until October1943, advancing from private to staff sergeant. He was discharged becauseof health problems. He then settled in Los Angeles where he graduated cumlaude in 1950 from Los Angeles City College. He studied for an additionalyear at Los Angeles State College. While in the Army, Mr. Johnson wasmarried on July 23, 1943, to Della Florence Hinshaw. They had one child,a daughter named Rosemary, who was born November 1, 1944.
While attending college, Mr. Johnson continued his genealogical researchand published his first major work in 1951, the Hiatt-Hiett Genealogy andFamily History, 1699 -1949, comprising over 1,000 pages.
In 1952, Mr. Johnson decided to make genealogy his profession as well ashis hobby. He moved back to North Carolina, settling in Raleigh where hecontinued to live until his death. Specializing in North Carolinagenealogy, he traveled widely throughout North Carolina, as well as thesouthern states generally, on behalf of his many clients. His wideknowledge of the sources of genealogical research, along with hisinherent ability and perseverance, enabled him to solve genealogicalproblems that often baffled others. His many publications of genealogicalsource material and family histories, including his editorship, begun in1955, of The North Carolinian, a Quarterly Journal of Genealogy andHistory, will serve as monuments to his memory as a distinguishedgenealogical scholar.
The photograph of Mr. Johnson appearing on page 2256 was taken in 1956and was first published in the Raleigh News and Observer of March 11 ofthat year. For many years he had made a determined effort to locatephotographs of his ancestors, which appear in the photograph. Besides hisparents, his four grandparents and his eight great-grandparents, he hadphotographs of eight of his sixteen great-great-grandparents, and four ofhis great-great-great-grandparents, along with a silhouette of one of hisgreat-great-great-great-grandmothers.
Genealogical research has suffered a severe loss with William PerryJohnson’s passing. His work on behalf of The Sparks Family Associationwill be sorely missed.