Joyce Perry Johnson loves reading and has learned listening is most important.
By Kris Dreessen
Joyce Perry Johnson â48 spent her first year as a Geneseo student in Emerson Hall, sharing the large boarding house with 15 other women. World War II wasnât over, and the lack of male students â only one among the 300-plus undergrads â meant all menâs sports were canceled. She and her friends used to walk to the movie theater and diners on Main Street and treat themselves to fancy dinners at the Big Tree Inn.
Johnson enjoyed the special concerts students organized each December, and sang in a few. She and her roommate hitchhiked into Rochester for her roommateâs violin lesson because no one had cars â and thankfully, they were safe.
âTimes were different back then,â laughs Johnson.
Johnson majored in library science at Geneseo, thanks to her high school librarian, who was approachable, easy to talk to â and a Geneseo graduate.
âI was a true nerd and spent a lot of time in the library,â remembers Johnson, laughing. âShe finally said, âI think you would enjoy the college I attended.â I love books. I didnât really know what I wanted to do, but that sounded like a good place to start. I am thankful she did recommend Geneseo.â
Johnson grew up on a farm in western New York and immediately felt like she fit in on campus. Rural Geneseo felt comfortable, classes were small and people were nice. She spent her upperclass years living in a house on Park Street with her Alpha Kappa Phi sisters,near where Brodie Fine Arts Building now stands.
Faculty encouraged students to get out of the back row and participate, says Johnson â a fact she still appreciates. In addition to her classes, she was fascinated by the handset-type process used to put together The Lamron â another nerd move, she says â and went on to hold several positions at the paper.
The year she graduated, 1948, Geneseo saw two big milestones. It officially became part of the SUNY system, and moved from a Normal School to a public liberal arts college.
Johnson also scored a position as a librarian for the DuPont chemicals company in Buffalo. Another Geneseo graduate was doing such a good job in that role, Johnson remembers, the company sought another Geneseo alum. In 1950, she transferred to DuPontâs headquarters in Wilmington, Del. She worked in the headquartersâ technical library for eight years, managing collections of technical books and research reports used by scientists and engineers for research and development.
âIt was a wonderful experience,â she says. âI met amazing people.â One of them was Ph.D. chemist Donald Johnson, whom she married a year after their introduction.
After they had their son and daughter, Johnson chose not to return to work. âAll in all, I made the right decision, and my children are still speaking to me, so thatâs a good thing,â she says.
Both of Johnsonâs children live in Portland â one in Maine, one in Oregon. Donald died in 1998. Sheâs still active in her church and has been active in the League of Women Voters for many years. She says the pandemic has slowed down her outings to concerts and theater performances she enjoys, but sheâs watching the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and other performances online. And she still loves to read.
âThatâs no big surprise,â she says.
While much of her life has revolved around reading for enjoyment and supporting othersâ endeavors through books and research, Johnson nowadays focuses more on listening.
Itâs often difficult for people, including herself, she says, to truly listen to another personâs views and feelings before they respond. Sheâs also hesitant to believe she knows how someone else feels or what they experience.
âI try very hard to listen and make sure I understand where they are coming from before I start to reply,â she says. âIâve learned that to really help a person, or yourself, you have to do the basic listening. Itâs not always easy to do, but itâs important to try to walk in other peopleâs shoes. If you donât listen completely, who knows what little gem you are going to miss?â
Class of 1948: Joyce Perry Johnsonâs recent reading list:
Barack Obama, âA Promised Land: The Presidential Memoirs, Volume 1â (2020).
âItâs a rather large tome. It was so heavy I had to find a comfortable chair to prop it up. I loved it. Itâs beautifully written and an amazing story.â
Gerald Durrell, âThe Overloaded Ark (1953)
Durrell, a British naturalist, shares his journey to Cameroon with an ornithologist to collect animal specimens. âI found it on my shelf and saw I had written âMerry Christmasâ to my father, in 1953, on a page. I wanted to read it.â
Terry Gross, âAll I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musiciansâ (2004)
Host and co-producer of National Public Radioâs Fresh Air program shares three dozen of her most memorable interviews. âShe also shares what it was like to interview the person.â