Elra Wade Johnson was born in Durant, Mississippi, in 1906 to Joe Wade and Minnie Montgomery. Johnson had two sons: J. B. McCellan and Willie Montgomery. Elra Wade married John Johnson in 1953. She had 18 grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren, and 41 great-great-grandchildren. In addition to her work in domestic service, Johnson worked as a seamstress, and later as a nurse at Durant Hospital. Elra Johnson earned a degree from the Post Graduate School of Nursing in Chicago in 1961. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement, participating in protests and voter registration drives and serving as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She was elected to the Holmes County Board of Election Commissioners in 1968 and 1972. After her husband’s death in the 1980s, Johnson moved to Waterloo to be close to McCellan. There she was a member of the Payne Memorial A.M.E. Church. Elra Johnson died in 2008 at the age of 102. [Biographical information found in Johnson’s interview for the African American Voices of Cedar Valley project; in “Turbulent Times,” a 2006 profile of Johnson in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier; and in her obituary as published in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier]

J.B. McCellan was born in Durant, Mississippi, in 1926 to Elra Johnson. He was raised by his grandmother. McCellan married Almeta Newman in Lexington, Mississippi, on June 27, 1946. He moved to Waterloo in 1946 to work for John Deere, where he spent his entire career, retiring in 1983. McCellan was a veteran of the United States Navy. He had four daughters, a son, 32 grandchildren, and more than 100 great- and great-great-grandchildren. He was a fan of stock car racing, a CB operator, and an avid vegetable gardener. J.B. McCellan died in 2019 at the age of 93. [Biographical information found in McCellan’s obituary as published in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier]