Muriel Annice Davis Johnson, a former Harlem Park Junior High School vice principal, died of dementia complications April 2 at her Pikesville home. The former Ashburton resident was 96.
Born in Washington, D.C., she was the daughter of Ellsworth Davis and Theima Marshall Davis. She attended Lovejoy Elementary School, Brown Junior High and was a graduate of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. She earned a degree from what is now the University of the District of Columbia.
She briefly worked for the old Department of the Army’s finance section and completed a master’s degree at Howard University.
“She was encouraged by her teachers at Howard that the teaching opportunities were better in Baltimore,” said Marcus Simms, an extended family member.
She joined the Baltimore City Public Schools in 1954 and became a teacher, faculty adviser to the school’s newspaper, coordinator of public speaking contests and plays at Charles Hamilton Houston Junior High School in West Baltimore.
Mrs. Johnson took additional courses at Morgan State University and Towson University and became a counselor at Pimlico Junior High School.
Family members said she prided herself on working with her students to make the transition to high school. She assisted students in navigating behavioral, peer and family interactions.
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She was later named an assistant principal at Harlem Park Junior High School. She served at Harlem Park until her initial retirement in July 1983. She then went into the administration of N.M. Carroll Manor, a Baltimore City senior residence at Lafayette Square. She worked until 2010.
She wed Paul Mifflin Johnson, an educator and finance administrator, at St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church in Walbrook in June 1958. They were the first African American couple to marry at the Roman Catholic congregation.
Mrs. Johnson had been a member of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and converted to Catholicism in the early 1970s. For more than 50 years she was a parishioner of St. Cecilia, where she was a Sunday school teacher, lector, corporator and secretary and president of the parish council. She also belonged to St. Cecilia’s Ladies of Charity.
She was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Baltimore chapter of Continental Societies, Inc., the For-Win-Ash Garden Club and Ashburton Area Association.
She played Scrabble and was a devotee of soap operas.
“She was one of a kind. She was independent, spiritually guided, loving and caring,” said her son-in-law, WBAL-TV reporter Barry Simms.
“She was a fierce competitor when it came to playing Scrabble. Whenever I played, I tried to figure out how she always seemed to get letters that gave her high scores. Her strategy always worked. Even when I thought I was winning, she would come from behind and win the game.”
Survivors include her daughter, Cecilia Ann Johnson Simms, of Pikesville; two brothers, Ronald Davis Sr., of Hyattsville, and Kenneth Davis, of Washington, D.C.; three grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. Her husband, Paul Mifflin Johnson, died in 2009.
A funeral was held April 12 at St. Cecilia’s Church.
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