Dorothy Corinne Adams Johnson

After a decade-long significant decline in her health, Dorothy Corinne Adams Johnson passed from this world in the early hours of Saturday March 4^th, 2023.

It is said that the King of England, George VI, wept as he stood in the ruins of the burned Cathedral of St. Michael’s in Coventry England. On the eve of November 14^th, 1940, Nazi Germany initiated what would be recorded as the most concentrated attack on a British city during World War II. Following the air raid, Nazi propagandists coined a new German word: Coventrieren, to describe the razing of a city to the ground. History recalls the night to have been so bright with Moonlight that traffic could move around the roadways without lighting.

With unintentional poetic irony, Germany had codenamed the attack “Moonlight Sonata”, and the raid lasted for 11 hours and involved nearly 500 Luftwaffe bombers gathered from all over German occupied Europe. This was a concerted and deliberate travail of death perpetrated by hatred to remove people from the world.

Yet while this horrific tragedy of world history was being meted out by the tyrannical Nazi regime in Europe, in the United States, on the very same eve, a husband and wife were in travail to bring forth an image of God, Dorothy Corrine Adams. A man and woman’s love for each other born in the expression of life.

NOVEMBER 15^TH 1940 at 12.25 a.m., a celebration of new life was taking place as Dorothy Corinne Adams Johnson was born to George M. and Dorothy F. Adams in the small southern New Mexico town of Carlsbad, NM. While the United States was electing Franklin D Roosevelt for a third Presidential term, and just like the historic first Black man Benjamin O. Davis being appointed as General in the United States Army, George and Dorothy were bringing a unique new soul into the world.

Corinne spent her first years in Carlsbad NM, what was then a small town of 7,116, until the family moved, which they did several times in her life. Her father George was an engineer and worked for the U.S. Department of Energy, which later became the Department of Defense. She lived most of her early childhood on various military bases throughout the Southwestern United States. The family finally settled in Albuquerque, NM, where she lived throughout her teenage years, and attended Highland High School, graduating in 1958. She did not immediately go to college but instead took a job working for Sandia National Labs.

She worked until 1964, at which time she enrolled at Abilene Christian College in Abilene TX. At college she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language Arts. She was a member of the “Choralaires,” a group of vocalists who were commissioned during her tenure to travel with the USO to perform for military personnel stationed in the still cooling war theatre of Europe. She continued her education by obtaining a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oklahoma in Speech Pathology in 1971. Shortly after graduation, she began teaching at the University of Arizona. While there, she met Earl Richard Johnson, whom she married in 1972. Earl and Corinne gave birth to one son, Chase Adams Johnson, in 1977.

Sadly, Earl and Corinne divorced, and Corinne moved back to Albuquerque, NM, with her son Chase. Corinne and Chase lived with her parents, George and Dorothy, through the remaining years of their lives.

For the next 40+ years of her life Corrine enjoyed an active love of music, literature and the theater. For many years she was the choir director of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, where she directed not only the choir on Sunday mornings, but also led any and all who would participate in reenactments of various classic Broadway musicals and home-hosted singalongs. She loved to host large parties at her house where groups of people would play games, celebrate holidays and personal events. She sang and acted in numerous ACLOA (Albuquerque Civic Light Opera) productions, in which she also involved her son. She was a voice and vocal coach to many a local artist.  She wrote an unpublished sequel to Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, which was in addition to her numerous personal poems and writings.  Her pen name was Christopher Lane.

Corinne was blessed to have Rachel Anne Johnson brought into the family as Chase’s wife in 2001 and was also blessed to be able to meet her wonderful granddaughter, Jessica Riley Nicole Johnson, who was born September 9, 2001. Riley was a splendor to Corinne, and she loved her family dearly.

She is survived by her son, Chase Adams Johnson, and his wife Rachel Anne Johnson, as well as their daughter, Jessica Riley Nicole Johnson.

She was an influential persona in the lives of her family and they loved her greatly.

Although born into a world in tumult and destruction, she found the beauty and artistry that is the indelible mark of a Sovereign Father, who gave His only Son to reconcile this still rebellious and hate filled people. Through words, music, and portrayal, Corinne was a constant reminder that the only Truth and Beauty that lies within us is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

“If you dip into the life of anyone, plunge beneath the façade, penetrate the self-applied veneer, you will find a wound of perpetual sin that has infected us all. This self-inflicted wound, although for many healed by Jesus Christ, is still a scar that bears testament to what we have lived, what we have endured, both from self-harm as well as the abuse of even well-intentioned others. And beneath that scar tissue lies a perpetual evil, a deceitful heart that unless guarded against, unless fought vigilantly and diligently with God’s Righteousness, will spring forth through our very soul to take any and all it can, along with us, into desolation and destruction.

This is why we need a new birth into and through Jesus Christ. Because only in His given Life of Purity and Holiness can we share with others the Grace and Mercy that is His Transforming Love in and to us. It is only when the perpetual evil that lurks in our souls is defeated by Christ that we can then share our still evident scars, and so through the Power of Christ alone carry ourselves and others to God’s Throne.”

~Chase Adams Johnson~