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A FORMIDABLE ADVOCATE AT WORK, IN COMMUNITY
BY: Bart Barnes
The Washington Post
July 15, 2012 Sunday
Met 2 Edition
For 40 years, Dora Johnson helped feed the hungry and homeless of
Washington in the soup kitchens of Martha's Table and St. Stephen
and the Incarnation Episcopal Church. She insisted meat be added to
the basic meal of beans and rice.
"Why?" she was asked. "It already has plenty of protein."
"These people want meat," she replied. "Put some meat in it."
Meat was added.
When she first moved to Mount Pleasant in the mid-1960s, the Northwest
Washington neighborhood was scruffy and down at the heels, and it
remained so for several years. It was a common occurrence for Metrobus
drivers to leave the bus stop with passengers still waiting to board.
Their buses were too full, the drivers said. Often those left waiting
at the stop were schoolchildren, including two who were Mrs.
Johnson's.
"After the kids could not get on for two or three mornings, Dora showed
up," a neighbor, Doug Huron, wrote in an e-mail. "When the bus arrived,
she stood in front of it - and would not move until the driver had
told the passengers [to] move to the back, so the kids could get on."
Mrs. Johnson could be formidable, to be sure. But she also
made popcorn, which for decades she distributed annually to
trick-or-treaters on Halloween. "She was known to all the neighborhood
children as 'The Popcorn Lady,' " said a friend, Dunstan Hayden.
Dora Johnson, 74, died of pancreatic cancer June 26 at her home. The
death was confirmed by her daughter, Alicia Koundakjian.
In her professional life, Mrs. Johnson was a program associate at the
Center for Applied Linguistics, a private, nonprofit organization
that supports and encourages the teaching of less commonly taught
languages, such as Pashto, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish and Arabic.
Her work included the development of learning standards and
establishment of a support network for the teaching of Arabic in U.S.
elementary and high schools. It was her dream, she once said, that
Arabic would become "an accepted language to be taught" in the public
schools of the United States.
Mrs. Johnson spoke English with no discernible traces of a Middle
Eastern accent. "I had known her for 10 years before I realized that
English was not her first language," said Meg Malone, a colleague at
the Center for Applied Linguistics.
Dora Esther Koundakjian was born Oct. 13, 1937, in Beirut. She was
named for Dora Spenlow, the "child-wife" of David Copperfield in the
Charles Dickens novel, which her mother was reading at the time. Her
native language was Armenian, but she also quickly learned Arabic,
Turkish, French and English.
In 1957, she received an associate's degree at Beirut College for
Women (now Lebanese American University) and then came to the United
States to study linguistics. In 1960, she graduated from Transylvania
University in Lexington, Ky.
Years later, when her children were growing up, her son, Martin,
would tease his younger sister, Alicia, that the Transylvania diploma
was "proof" that their mother was a vampire, linking her to Count
Dracula, whose castle was said to have been in the Transylvania region
of Romania.
In 1964, Mrs. Johnson received a master's degree in linguistics at
the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Connecticut. She then came to
Washington and began her career at the Center for Applied Linguistics.
At the center, she conducted and published surveys on materials and
needs, developed language learning materials and worked on literacy
issues for adults whose first language was not English. She helped
write survival phrase books for refugees, edited language policy papers
for the U.S. Agency for International Development and participated in
surveys of teaching materials for less commonly taught languages. She
retired in 2009.
Her marriage to real estate investor R. Bruce Johnson ended in divorce.
Survivors include two children, Martin Johnson of St. Paul, Minn.,
and Alicia Koundakjian of Washington, who took her mother's maiden
name; a brother, Philip Koundakjian of Des Moines; and a granddaughter.
Mrs. Johnson was a vivid presence in her community. She served on
the board of the Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home in Washington, and
she played piano at the Sunday services of the Community of Christ
fellowship in Mount Pleasant, a lay-led ecumenical congregation. For
several years, she participated in the Christmas Eve pageant at
Washington National Cathedral, dressed as a clown.
On Christmas and Thanksgiving, there was always a place at her dinner
table and plenty of food for anyone having nowhere else to go, said
a friend, Dorothy Pohlman.
In an effort to spruce up her neighborhood, Mrs. Johnson regularly
patrolled the blocks near her home with a pair of long-handled pincers,
picking up trash.
Not long after moving to Mount Pleasant, she planted a flower garden
in her yard. As soon as the flowers bloomed, neighborhood children
picked them and ran off. This enraged her family.
"Dora would tell us to calm down, that they were picking for their
mothers," Philip Koundakjian said. "She felt that if she kept the
yard clean and pretty, neighbors would start doing the same."
From: A. Papazian
BY: Bart Barnes
The Washington Post
July 15, 2012 Sunday
Met 2 Edition
For 40 years, Dora Johnson helped feed the hungry and homeless of
Washington in the soup kitchens of Martha's Table and St. Stephen
and the Incarnation Episcopal Church. She insisted meat be added to
the basic meal of beans and rice.
"Why?" she was asked. "It already has plenty of protein."
"These people want meat," she replied. "Put some meat in it."
Meat was added.
When she first moved to Mount Pleasant in the mid-1960s, the Northwest
Washington neighborhood was scruffy and down at the heels, and it
remained so for several years. It was a common occurrence for Metrobus
drivers to leave the bus stop with passengers still waiting to board.
Their buses were too full, the drivers said. Often those left waiting
at the stop were schoolchildren, including two who were Mrs.
Johnson's.
"After the kids could not get on for two or three mornings, Dora showed
up," a neighbor, Doug Huron, wrote in an e-mail. "When the bus arrived,
she stood in front of it - and would not move until the driver had
told the passengers [to] move to the back, so the kids could get on."
Mrs. Johnson could be formidable, to be sure. But she also
made popcorn, which for decades she distributed annually to
trick-or-treaters on Halloween. "She was known to all the neighborhood
children as 'The Popcorn Lady,' " said a friend, Dunstan Hayden.
Dora Johnson, 74, died of pancreatic cancer June 26 at her home. The
death was confirmed by her daughter, Alicia Koundakjian.
In her professional life, Mrs. Johnson was a program associate at the
Center for Applied Linguistics, a private, nonprofit organization
that supports and encourages the teaching of less commonly taught
languages, such as Pashto, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish and Arabic.
Her work included the development of learning standards and
establishment of a support network for the teaching of Arabic in U.S.
elementary and high schools. It was her dream, she once said, that
Arabic would become "an accepted language to be taught" in the public
schools of the United States.
Mrs. Johnson spoke English with no discernible traces of a Middle
Eastern accent. "I had known her for 10 years before I realized that
English was not her first language," said Meg Malone, a colleague at
the Center for Applied Linguistics.
Dora Esther Koundakjian was born Oct. 13, 1937, in Beirut. She was
named for Dora Spenlow, the "child-wife" of David Copperfield in the
Charles Dickens novel, which her mother was reading at the time. Her
native language was Armenian, but she also quickly learned Arabic,
Turkish, French and English.
In 1957, she received an associate's degree at Beirut College for
Women (now Lebanese American University) and then came to the United
States to study linguistics. In 1960, she graduated from Transylvania
University in Lexington, Ky.
Years later, when her children were growing up, her son, Martin,
would tease his younger sister, Alicia, that the Transylvania diploma
was "proof" that their mother was a vampire, linking her to Count
Dracula, whose castle was said to have been in the Transylvania region
of Romania.
In 1964, Mrs. Johnson received a master's degree in linguistics at
the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Connecticut. She then came to
Washington and began her career at the Center for Applied Linguistics.
At the center, she conducted and published surveys on materials and
needs, developed language learning materials and worked on literacy
issues for adults whose first language was not English. She helped
write survival phrase books for refugees, edited language policy papers
for the U.S. Agency for International Development and participated in
surveys of teaching materials for less commonly taught languages. She
retired in 2009.
Her marriage to real estate investor R. Bruce Johnson ended in divorce.
Survivors include two children, Martin Johnson of St. Paul, Minn.,
and Alicia Koundakjian of Washington, who took her mother's maiden
name; a brother, Philip Koundakjian of Des Moines; and a granddaughter.
Mrs. Johnson was a vivid presence in her community. She served on
the board of the Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home in Washington, and
she played piano at the Sunday services of the Community of Christ
fellowship in Mount Pleasant, a lay-led ecumenical congregation. For
several years, she participated in the Christmas Eve pageant at
Washington National Cathedral, dressed as a clown.
On Christmas and Thanksgiving, there was always a place at her dinner
table and plenty of food for anyone having nowhere else to go, said
a friend, Dorothy Pohlman.
In an effort to spruce up her neighborhood, Mrs. Johnson regularly
patrolled the blocks near her home with a pair of long-handled pincers,
picking up trash.
Not long after moving to Mount Pleasant, she planted a flower garden
in her yard. As soon as the flowers bloomed, neighborhood children
picked them and ran off. This enraged her family.
"Dora would tell us to calm down, that they were picking for their
mothers," Philip Koundakjian said. "She felt that if she kept the
yard clean and pretty, neighbors would start doing the same."
From: A. Papazian