The saga of Miss May Johnson, a 20-year-old schoolteacher whose 1896-97 diary entries captivated readers for two years in The Key West Citizen, has come to an end with Thursday’s Today in Keys History entry.
The journal entries, compiling the day-to-day experiences of the young Key West woman, were transcribed by Mary Heffenreffer and provided by Tom Hambright, historian of the Monroe Public Library and made part of the Today in Keys History column, which appears daily in The Citizen.
“My job is to collect and preserve history, but that whole family is a huge, interesting rat hole to fall in,” Hambright said in a four-part video about May Johnson, produced by the library.
May Johnson was the daughter of Charles Samuel Johnson and Mary Watlington Johnson, one of the seven daughters of Capt. Francis Watlington, owner of the Oldest House. May had two brothers and two sisters, often mentioned in her diary.
Johnson, who lived in the area of what is now Truman Avenue, taught school in a building located where the Harvey Government Center stands. Little is known of her own education; there was not to be a high school graduation class in Key West until 1908. She may have been educated at a school operated by the Watlington family at the Oldest House.
When the public first meet Johnson in 1896, daily entries in her journal reported scant details of the mundane: “Awoke, dressed, did work, had breakfast went to school, came home, had dinner.” Her home had neither electricity nor running water, although Hambright noted that there was probably a hand pump for the well.
Dinner was at lunchtime, and then the day’s more interesting activities were listed. Johnson visited many, many friends in the afternoon and evening hours, sewed shirtwaists, went to the post office, took piano lessons, shopped at Curry’s store and wrote letters to her ‘darling Everest’ Sewell, who lived as a merchant in the newly-founded town of Miami and later went on to serve as mayor for several terms after the romance foundered.
Her busy day was often finished with a mule-powered trolley car ride out to La Brisa, a popular dance hall pavilion at the end of Simonton Street where the Reach Hotel is now located.
As a young, unmarried woman, she was not allowed to attend these events unescorted, but the presence of her older brother did not damper her enthusiasm for a ‘KICKING’ time, as she frequently reported, scandalizing her many readers, causing them to collectively clutch their pearls. The U.S. Navy was a very active presence on the island and Johnson recounted meetings with officers from both commercial and military vessels, including the doomed Battleship Maine.
Although her diary entries ended in February of 1897, Hambright believes that there are other diaries from that era somewhere, as a journal from her later years has been found.
“She didn’t answer all of our questions,” Hambright noted.
Even though largely undocumented, Johnson went to on live an interesting life, especially for a Key West woman in that time period.
In 1901, when many women her age were long married or resigned to the life of a spinster, she met and married Dr. Stephen William Douglass a Naval pharmacist from Massachusetts.
As the Navy repeatedly transferred Douglass, the couple traveled extensively, at one point being stationed in the Philippines. In 1913, with five months’ leave available, they opted for the long way home, sailing to Hong Kong, through the Suez Canal, on to Southampton, England and then to New York, before returning to the island. Hambright believes that Johnson was the first Key West woman to circumnavigate the globe.
They had a son and a daughter, both lost in 1907, possibly in an epidemic.
Once back in Key West, they lived in the same house in which she was raised. She took control of the Oldest House and attempted to open a museum there, later leaving the property to a relative.
May Johnson Douglass died in 1951 at the age of 75 and is buried in the Key West City Cemetery, next to her husband who died in 1943.
“Are there still diaries out there? We think so, what happened between 1897 and 1911 when one more journal surfaced, but that’s a rat hole I don’t have time to go down.” Hambright said.
A visitor to Johnson’s gravesite left flowers and a letter addressed to her, asking “Can you share more? With every word, you wrote we transport ourselves back in time to live alongside your daily routines and emotions. We wait for you and hope there are more surprises and fun-filled days ahead with you. KICKING.”
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February 18, 2021 at 12:00PM
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May Johnson's diary entries come to sudden end — for now - KeysNews.com
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