News
Marvtastic Mama
Beneath the glitter, a heart of pure gold
Journal Photo by David Rolfe
Annie Hamlin Johnson, 78, has outlived her two sons — Richard Hamlin (left), who died at age 31, and Larry Leon Hamlin, the founder of the National Black Theatre Festival, who died last year.
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Published: May 11, 2008
Several months ago, something stirred Annie Hamlin Johnson from her sleep.
Groggy-eyed, she walked from her bedroom to her living room and felt compelled to pick up a well-worn book that had been sitting on a table for years.
The book, With Love to a Wonderful Mother, was given to her on Mother's Day in 1981 by her son Larry Leon Hamlin, who died last June from complications of a stroke.
Johnson treasured the book. Inside the front flap, Hamlin had written a long, loving inscription filled with wistful reflections of his childhood and a wish that he, his three siblings and his mother would be together in eternity.
On this night, Johnson opened the book to a random page and came to an unfamiliar poem called "Mother Dear." Her eyes zeroed in on a small, barely noticeable check mark next to a line that read:
Dear Mother, You are part of me. And I am part of you.
This was the work of Larry's spirit, Johnson thought. He had poked her awake and led her to that book, that page, that line.
"God is an awesome God. Do you hear me?" Johnson said. "Larry's spirit is with me all the time."
She paused.
"And Richard's, too."
Two sons gone
Johnson, 78, had four children. The most famous, Larry, was founder of the National Black Theatre Festival. When he died, Johnson was already familiar with the special brand of pain that comes with burying a child.
Thirty years ago, her oldest child, Richard, a teacher, died at 31 of complications from a heart defect.
When people express sympathy about losing two children, she tells them that it is nothing compared to the pain that Mary must have felt watching Jesus die.
"She was looking, and she saw what they were doing to her child. Crucifying him," Johnson said.
Richard's death so devastated the close-knit Hamlins that Larry decided to leave his home in Rhode Island and start a theater company in Winston-Salem, Johnson said.
The boys were products of a mother who loves God, laughter, performing, barbecued ribs and bright clothes. For all her flair and love of theatrics, Johnson tries to live by a simple set of values passed down from her mother.
"You are no better than anyone else, and no one else is better than you. We are all the same in God's eyes," her mother would tell her.
They are words that little Annie Simpson learned growing up in Reidsville. Her mother was a homemaker. Her father worked in an ice factory.
Young Annie was an active child who played softball and was captain of the basketball team at Booker T. Washington High School.
She spent Saturdays at a local movie house and developed a passion for acting. One day, a teacher told Annie that she needed her to play the role of Lena Horne for a skit. Johnson rushed to the library to gather some biographical material on Horne and nailed the part.
From then on, kids in the hallway would spot her and say: "Here comes Lena Horne."
Married at 16
At 16, Johnson married Charles Nolan Hamlin, a handsome young man whose eye she had caught while playing basketball. Two years later, she gave birth to Richard. He was born with a heart defect, and doctors told Johnson that he would probably not live past 30.
While her husband worked at a tobacco factory, Johnson stayed home with the children -- Richard, Larry, Sherrie and Linda. Some evenings, she would bake a cake, and the kids would perform skits, read poems and sing on top of a wooden box that her husband built. She taught them how to act sad or happy.
If one of the kids looked stiff, she would tell them: "Put more action in it."
As Johnson talked of the old days, she would often stop in midsentence, rummage through a book shelf and pull out a photo to illustrate a point. Occasionally, her voice would catch and she would have to pause. Other times, she would erupt into giggles recalling something funny Richard or Larry did.
Eventually, all the children wound up in Forsyth County. And in the late 1970s, Johnson joined them. She and her first husband divorced after 19 years, and in 1977, she married Aaron Johnson. They live in a split-level house off Reynolds Park Road.
Johnson worked at the main branch of the Forsyth County Public Library for 21 years. At her retirement banquet in 2001, Sherrie Hamlin told her: "Mom, God is not finished with you yet. You still have work to do."
She was right. Shortly after she retired, Johnson began volunteering with AIDS Care Service. She drove people with HIV and AIDS to doctors' appointments and helped with whatever needed to be done at Holly Haven, a home for people with the virus.
"I felt like that was another mother's child," Johnson said. "I wanted them to know that I loved them and that I was there for them."
She was later asked to serve on the board.
Bill Tribby, a former president at AIDS Care Service, said Johnson gives off a positive energy that makes clients and fellow board members feel better.
Occasionally, the board would discuss a coming event, and somebody would add, "Well, we better have food." For some people, bringing food meant a box of crackers.
"She would show up with a cake," he said. "You can't upstage her."
Always acting
Throughout her adult life, Johnson stayed involved in acting. She started two different acting groups, Annie Johnson and the Traveling Actresses and Annie Johnson and the Wonder Girls. They go to churches and nursing homes and perform skits, many of them written by Johnson.
Sherrie Hamlin said she believes that performing is in the family's blood. Though Larry turned his theatrical skills into a career, all of Johnson's children loved acting. Richard was a natural comedian -- Richard Pryor without the vulgarity, Sherrie Hamlin said.
"It must be from our ancestors," she said.
Beyond acting and family, the biggest constant in Johnson's life is her Christian faith. In hard times, it has been her rock, said the Rev. Sir Walter L. Mack Jr., her pastor at Union Baptist Church. She regularly attends church and Bible study and does so dressed in bright, stylish clothes with matching purse, hat and gloves. When the church has a function, Johnson is among the first to pitch in and help.
"If I could have a church full of Annie Johnsons, that would be just like heaven to me," Mack said.
Johnson said she doesn't know how she could have gotten through this year without God.
Larry was cut from the same purple-sequined cloth. They shared the same love of acting, dressing up and making things happen.
Often, he would tell her: "Mama, you are the star."
Larry's accomplishments still cause her to shake her head in disbelief.
"Can you believe one of my children was invited to the White House four times?" she said.
A few years ago at the National Black Theatre Festival, a person working in public relations referred to her as "Mama Marvtastic," a play on one of Larry's favorite words.
Johnson loved it.
Larry is buried at Richard's feet.
It's difficult enough, she said, to carry flowers to the cemetery for one son. God has given her the strength to carry flowers for two.
Today, Johnson will celebrate Mother's Day with her daughters -- Sherrie, an internal-medicine referral coordinator at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and Linda Moore, a custodian with Forsyth County government.
At some point, Johnson said, she feels certain that Larry's spirit will come calling again.
Richard's, too.
"I know what I feel in my heart," Johnson said. "They are in heaven and looking down and saying, ‘Happy Mother's Day, mama.'"
■ Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lo'donnell@wsjournal
.com
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( saliahrice ) on May 11, 2008 at 1:05 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
grandma im thinking of you and my aunties on this mothers day. i hope your day goes well. i miss and i love you. rip godfather larry leon hamlin.
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Posted by ( cartouche ) on May 11, 2008 at 9:01 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
You are in our prayers. Thinking of you.
Cartouche LeGrande and Family
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