Mary C. Staib Johanning

Posted on: Mar 07, 2019 at 9:54 AM

Good Morning Victoria,
I was so glad to see your yearbook picture because your name had been lost in memory till I saw it along with your picture. I can’t tell you how important you were to me my first day at Topeka High School. I had just arrived in the middle of our junior year. Little did you know, I had just come from Japan where my dad was a part of the Surgeon Generals inspection team going in and out of Vietnam, which we didn’t know at the time. He had two heart attacks and internal bleeding and he was medically retired from the service with six months to live. We came back to Kansas where my mother’s family was living to prepare for my dad’s death. I had always gone to schools on military bases and there were generally 300-400 students and now I was attending Topeka High. You were so welcoming and I will be eternally grateful for your kindness. You invited me to lunch my first day and showed me around that very daunting cafeteria, which may have been the most beautiful I had ever seen, but very complicated for a newb. The memory of your thoughtfulness and kindness to a complete stranger has stayed with me for these 50 years and it is time, for sure, to say, “Thank You!” The good news is that my dad became involved with the FDA trial for the drug Inderal and lived an additional twenty years. It truly is a small world; our son Chad Johanning lives in Lawrence, as well, and he is a physician. Hopefully, I will see you at our reunion and will thank you in person.

Hi Marta It has been so long and at the very least hopefully we get together at the 50th. I will really not know that many folks because of only attending THS a year and a half so it would be great to get caught up. Hope to see you in September. Sincerely, Mary