Johnnie Harper
Johnnie Harper was born in Coffee County, Georgia, one of the many sons of John Harper and Sarah Ann Ricketson. His stone gives his birth date as 6 May 1906. In the 1910 census he was six, in a farm household in Militia District 748 with his parents and nine brothers, from Elisha, 23, down to a little one called Babe, 4. His father died in 1912, when Johnnie was a small boy, and his brother Clem died of typhoid fever in 1927. In 1920 he was still at home with his widowed mother at Douglas.
He married Beatrice Stephens, a woman twelve years younger, and their first son, James Luke, was born in 1937, when she was nineteen.
The children came over nearly twenty years. Elizabeth was born at the end of 1940. Geneva followed in February 1945 and Edward in November 1946. By the family's account Edward was born at Dade City, in Pasco County, Florida, and Billy Charles certainly was, in January 1954, so the Harpers spent years in Florida as well as in Georgia. In all there were at least fourteen children: Elizabeth's obituary in 2021 counted seven brothers and six sisters. Besides those already named they were Glen, Thomas, Jimmy, Dorothy, Betty Sue, Margaret, Evelyn and Barbara. The sons all used the surname Harper, and his eldest was known as Johnnie Jr.
Beatrice died on 4 April 1966 at forty-eight. Johnnie lived ten more years. He died on 15 July 1976, aged seventy, and was buried beside her at Franklin Cemetery, the churchyard of Franklin Holiness Baptist Church near Douglas. Her stone says "Moma". His, the matching one, says "Daddy", and below that "Johnnie Harper, Sr."
Sources
If Johnnie Harper is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Johnnie Harper (1906-1976)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/johnnie-harper-1906-1976-acca04.