Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Wallace Higgins Johnson and Jeff Johnson—carried family histories marked by both loss and extraordinary resilience.
Wallace, born October 28, 1858, came from a family split by slavery. Her grandfather had been enslaved, but her grandmother was free. They were married, and when Wallace’s grandfather was sold “down South,” his wife followed him with their four young children as far as Kentucky.
There, elders warned her not to continue—because although she was free, her children could be seized and enslaved.
She stayed.
Her husband was never heard from again.
She raised three daughters and a son on her own and never remarried.
One of those daughters was Rachel Higgins, Mattie’s grandmother. Rachel raised her children in Kentucky, including her youngest, Wallace.
Rachel grappled with the painful reality that her father was white, and she avoided her white relatives, refusing both the attention and the privilege they tried to extend to her. Yet she taught her children two powerful lessons:
“Never say you’re going to stay in your place, because the place you’re in is not your place. You’re forced into it.”
“Don’t be bitter. The people who mistreated others simply didn’t know better.”
Those lessons shaped Mattie more than she ever realized.
Jeff Johnson, born April 7, 1858, also had a complicated family history. His father was from Kentucky, but the family traced back to Virginia, and Jeff’s grandfather was white. Jeff could not read or write—though he recognized his name—but he had farming expertise that would later change his family’s future. Jeff's mother's father, his grandfather, were very smart people. His grandfather's enslaver would allow him to go to the other farms to do work and he was able to save $1500 to buy his freedom. He went to Ohio for better opportunities to make money and then returned to Kentucky with another $1500 to buy his wife's freedom.
When he came back they were speaking of making him a slave again and was told to leave, so he left and left his wife then remarried and had more children. His wife was black with a lot of kinky hair. All of the men were very tall with big feet, one of them lived in Keene, they called him Uncle Dudd and he was a Blacksmith, known as one of the best in the state. Uncle George lived in Mortonsville, and Uncle William was cross-eyed and very smart; he was the state officer of the United Sons and Daughters Lodge (no longer exists). All of whom were born and raised in Southern Woodford County.
Jeff and Wallace married young, working first as sharecroppers, living on land they did not own. They raised four sons and three daughters, with Wallace working in the fields and taking on laundress work to support the household.
Around 1905–1906, Jeff purchased a small 19-acre farm.
He grew tobacco, corn, hay, and livestock while continuing sharecropping labor for white families.
Then came the turning point.
In 1916, white farmers in Mercer County invited him to raise hemp, promising he would earn good money. Jeff accepted, managing 80 acres of hemp—grueling work, but highly profitable during that era.
With what he earned, he sold the 19-acre farm and, going alone to the bank, purchased a 100-acre farm from a Black landowner.
The land was rough and isolated—“hard to get to,” Mattie remembered—but it was his.
From then on, Jeff worked for himself.
In southern Woodford County, many Black families owned 100–200 acre farms, and Jeff and Wallace became part of a deeply rooted Black landowning community.
Jeff lived to be 102 years old, witty and active until the end.
Wallace died at 70, proud of the family and values she passed down.