Oral history interview with Lisette Johnson, 2020

Biographical Note

Lisette Johnson was born in 1958 in Baltimore, Maryland. As a child, she moved to Hereford in rural northwestern Maryland with her parents and two older sisters. Her father repaired Xerox machines and her mother was a homemaker who also worked some retail. After high school, Johnson moved to Richmond, Virginia. She worked numerous jobs including gate check for a small airline, as an administrative assistant at a local oil company, travel agent, and owner of a travel agency. While at the oil company, she met her future husband, Marshall, who was thirteen years her senior and had been previously married and had two children. They married after five years of an intermittent relationship. They eventually had two children, Natalie and Graham. The relationship was abusive. In 2009, when Johnson informed Marshall that she wanted a divorce, he shot her three times in front of their children before committing suicide. Following this, Johnson has served as a domestic violence advocate

Scope and Contents

Lisette Johnson begins this life history interview with a description of her birth in Baltimore and her youth in Hereford, Maryland. She characterizes her childhood in rural Maryland as a happy one, with strong parents, two older sisters, and extended family in the area. Johnson describes her husband Marshall Johnson: how they met when she was twenty-one and he was a married man in his mid-thirties; their subsequent intermittent courtship; and their marriage. She outlines his patterns of abuse in the relationship, which were always present but escalated over time. She describes in detail the 2009 incident where she told Marshall that she wanted a divorce and he shot her three times before committing suicide. She describes the physical and emotional aftermath for her and her children, as well as the financial duress of needed treatment. Other topics addressed in the interview include the lives of her children, whom she had in her late thirties; her various jobs, such as her work as a travel agent; creating a life in Richmond, Virginia after her family moved to Colorado; and gun culture

Subjects

• Attempted murder.
• Family violence.
• Gun control--United States.
• Interviews.
• Johnson, Lisette--Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Suicide.
• Violent crimes--United States.
• Werner-Thomas, Holly, interviewer.

Access Conditions

Copyright by Lisette Johnson. The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York hold a non-exclusive license to enable library activities