Our weekly series, Remembering our Veterans took an unexpected turn.

We chatted with Doreen Johnson in March about her late husband Edward, a Korean War Veteran. Then on Sunday April 23rd, Doreen passed away at the age of 87 and her funeral was last Saturday.

Doreen was born on August 8th, 1935 in England and moved to the United States to marry her husband, Edward Johnson.

"I became a nanny, because there was 10 of those kids, it was a handful to take care of them, so I became a nanny and I took care of these American people," said Doreen. "The experience of everything I went through in my life, I can't imagine meeting up with my husband and getting married." 

As a child, just walking to school was extremely dangerous facing unexpected air raids. Her walk to school took hours each way.

"When they had that really bad bombing in London, they called it the blitz and I was right there when it happened. My kids can't believe we had to carry a gas mask on our backs everyday to school," said Doreen. "We go to church with our backs, we had to know just how many seconds or minutes it would take us to get to an air raid shelter." 

She was married to her husband, Edward a Korean War veteran for 64 years, memories of the war and her family are never far away.

"My toughest memory is my husband having to come home and leave me," said Doreen. "I had a good family, his grandparents were wonderful people, I really enjoyed everyone of them." 

Doreen was an active member of the North East Baptist Church and a former member of the Wesleyville Baptist Church for 55 years.

She was also quite proud of her career, she worked at the Hills Market on Station Road for 40 years. Doreen Johnson, thank you for sharing your story.