It’s that time of year again. Images of smiling faces in caps and gowns abound as students advance from one level of learning to the next. Families and friends beam with pride and expectation of what’s to come for their graduate, many believing the future to be boundless and the world to be theirs for the taking.
Delores Eldora Johnson, affectionately referred to as GG (short for great-grandma), is familiar with this experience. She and hundreds of other Ivy Tech students marched across the stage last weekend in their scholarly vestments, cheered on by the crowd. When GG crossed the stage, the crowd gave her a standing ovation. The 87-year-old, who has earned multiple degrees from both Ivy Tech and IUPUI, is the former’s oldest graduate in recent history.
When asked how it all feels, she replied, “You know what, I never really paid any attention to it,” adding that it wasn’t until Ivy Tech’s administration brought it to her attention that she understood the gravity of it all. For Johnson, the thrill comes from the liberty that learning has afforded her.
“(Education) was freedom; believe me, it was freedom,” she said.
For every mountain
Johnson’s story began in Colorado. Born in Boulder, the self-described “mountain child” was removed from her mother’s home at a young age, and she and her two younger siblings were put in the care of a family in Denver. While her two younger siblings were being adopted and enrolled in school, Johnson, who remained a foster child, asked when her time would come to be registered for school. “‘It’s time for you to grow up,’” she stated gruffly, mimicking her caretaker’s response. The 13-year-old then went to work as a domestic worker, cleaning homes, office buildings and log cabins.
In the office buildings, one task involved cleaning the metal spittoons on elevators where businessmen would discard chewing tobacco and snuff. Before tourist season, she and others in that line of work would have to climb up into the rafters of log cabins and clear debris, bird nests and spiders. At age 15, Johnson became pregnant with her first child. She had no understanding of her predicament, as sex education and prevention was not taught in those days. As was the custom, she married her child’s father immediately. She reflects on that time as a rough period but expressed that even in those moments, attaining an education was still a primary desire. “Going to libraries … Believe me, when I wasn’t busy, I was in the library,” she said. “Books is what worked for me.”
Some years after, Johnson moved to Indianapolis, where she continued domestic work. At one point, she was employed by Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Eiteljorg. “He fired me because he said my food tasted earthy,” she said with a laugh. “Now the Eiteljorg Museum, that’s the good thing about it. The earthy food.”
When she left domestic work for good, Johnson went along Indiana Avenue looking for employment. She landed at the Indianapolis Recorder. “I worked for the Recorder as a linotype operator. One of the things they would show me was the front page, and they made me study what makes a paper great,” she said. Later, she took a job as a taxicab driver for Safety Cab Company, the only operation at that time that would hire Black drivers and transport Black riders. Following the threat of a boycott by Rev. Mozel Sanders, Red Cab, another local operation, began to hire Black workers, as well. Johnson excelled as one of Red Cab’s top dispatchers before leaving to work as a florist’s apprentice. With the help of a government program to assist entrepreneurs in starting their own businesses, Johnson opened a flower shop, which she operated for nearly two decades.
“My shop was very famous on The Avenue,” she said. “It was called Van and Charco, and many people thought it was named for me and my then-husband, but it was named for my children — Van, the ‘and’ was for Andrea, ‘Char’ for Charlese and ‘Co’ for Coketo. It was around the corner from the Recorder.”
In an interview with the Campus Insider, Johnson revealed that through these years, she developed an addiction to alcohol. On her birthday (July 5) in 1985, she took her last drink and admitted herself to Fairbanks hospital. An N.A. by the name of Rosie Hatchett offered to assist Johnson with her hospital fees. “Every time I thought about taking a drink, I would just think what Rosie had done for me,” she shared.
An artist and inspiration
On a recent early Monday morning, Johnson entered the Ivy Tech library’s temporary art gallery, smiling as she’s known to do, stopping to hug each of her classmates. She moved about the room slowly, pointing out her various artistic creations, each holding a unique story. Self-portraits in a wrapped box on a shelf and several handcrafted scrolls hung from the ceiling tiles, colorful and full of numbers laid out using cuneiform. Some included the Fibonacci sequence. Scriptures and pictures bordered each, as well as quotes from philosophers like Aristotle and physicist Albert Einstein. Johnson says faith in God as creator and guide, as well as a zest for knowledge, inform her work and her life.
Though she had lived many lifetimes up until that point, overcoming much adversity, Johnson didn’t pursue a formal education until she was 61. “I had lied all of my life about having an education,” she said. “I didn’t want people to know I didn’t have an education. After my kids were all gone and I closed my flower shop, I thought, ‘I’m free and I can stop lying now. I can go ahead and get it.’”
Before, Johnson kept herself sharp by helping her children with their homework. Years later, she would have the opportunity to help other young people. “What got me in college in the first place was Head Start,” said Johnson. While in the grocery store she saw a flier advertising a program looking for senior citizens to come on board as preschool teachers’ assistants. She initially dismissed it but decided to give it a second glance. “There was a population explosion and they were backlogged, and there was a lady teaching seniors at IUPUI who got the bright idea to get the grandmothers out of the rocking chairs with those switches and teach them how to teach so the children will be able to go to preschool.” After that, Johnson earned the first of many college degrees. She now holds degrees in early childhood development, social human services and, as of last weekend, fine arts. While at Ivy Tech, she mentored many students, contributed to the scholarship fund and participated in several civic organizations.
Age has proved to be no barrier to Johnson as she plans to continue creating art and pursuing her education. Another IUPUI degree is on her to-do list. When asked what advice she’d give to other senior citizens, Johnson had this to say: “If you say to the children … ‘Man or girl, if I had your opportunity,’ well, you do have their opportunity,” she said.
“That’s the thing I’d like to prove, is that you’re never too old to learn. That’s it.”
