Lillie Mae Johnson is a hard worker. She moved to Sumter County in 1945, with her husband and has been here all but two years since then. She's a hard worker and distilled those values in her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"I've been out working in my garden today cutting scuppernong vines down," states 87-year-old Lillie Mae Johnson matter-of-factly.

Johnson was born and raised just a few miles from Andersonville in Macon County and graduated from Oglethorpe High School in 1939.

"The school house burned the year I started school. We went to school upstairs above the dry goods store. My uncle helped rebuild the school and we started going there after Christmas," she says.

While she was in high school, Johnson was interested in the theater and wrote a play that she and her friends presented in the Oglethorpe High School auditorium.

"We had a 50-year reunion at the high school a few years ago and we all sat on the stage in the same order we were in during our graduation," she remembers.

She and her husband raised a large family based on Christian principles. The church has always been a large part of her life. At one time she taught Sunday School at Andersonville Baptist Church before joining Andersonville Methodist Church.

"I went to the Methodist church on Sunday mornings and the Baptist church on Sunday afternoons. I go to Sunday School and church every Sunday morning now at Andersonville Methodist Church. I'm going to Camp Dooly tonight," says Johnson, "It's my night to go over there."

Johnson collects ceramic angels, dogs and cats.

"My sister-in-law made the nicest ceramics and she gave me some to start my collection," she says while seated in her comfortable living room surrounded by a lifetime of memories and memorabilia.

"That chair, that chair and that churn over there are mine," she adds. "I used to make butter in that churn. We had one cow for so long when I was growing up. My mama and I did the milking but my husband did it after we were married. We made a lot of butter in that churn."

Prominently displayed in her living room is a life-sized doll sitting in a child-sized chair.

"Gladys Coker got that doll when she was 10 years old. Santa Claus brought it to her. The doll's name is Virginia Pearl, named after her piano teacher. Virginia Pearl, the doll, is over 90 years old," she continued.

Johnson remembers Pennington Church, Brother Lawrence and his impact on the Andersonville Community.

"Brother Lawrence had dug a basement for his house. I don't know how he did it. He did a lot of good,” she said. “I remember him riding in his Model A. He didn't care what you were wearing. He'd say, 'Come on and let's go to church.'"