Johnnie Lipscomb

A Woman After God’s Own Heart

Born in the Kiomatia Community of Detroit, Texas, in Red River County, October 20, 1925, the daughter of the late Spencer Cary and Shirley Pemberton Cary. She is also the Great-Great Granddaughter of the late Rev. Elisha Barnes, who founded the first Red River and Lamar County Black churches, Mrs. Lipscomb attended elementary school in the Detroit, Texas system, later enrolling in Cheatham High School, Clarksville, Texas. While achieving her education, she was involved in many extra-curricular activities such as the college Alpha Kappa Alpha, Tidy Teens, and Comrades of Culture and Conduct.

At the age of sixteen, she graduated from high school as valedictorian and recipient of a four-year academic scholarship to attend Jarvis Christian College, affiliated with Texas Christian University. She graduated with a major in Home Economics and a minor in Integrated Science (biology and chemistry). Mrs. Lipscomb taught many years in the public school system in Red River County. Approximately twenty years later, having specialized in food and nutrition, she accepted a position in Campbell Soup Company’s Quality Control Department as a Quality Control Analysis Inspector and a Lab Technician where she worked for twenty-six and one-half years before retiring.

Born into a family of community leaders, preachers, and teachers, she was fortunate to be taught by her grandmother in first grade teacher in a one-classroom school in Kiomatia, Texas, and as a fourth-grade student she was taught by her older sister, the late Olivia (Cary) Hampton who also became her first music teacher.

She united in marriage for fifty-two years with the late Rev. Othel Lipscomb, operator and manager of the family’s cattle ranch, still owned by the family, located at 410 North of Detroit.  Her husband the late Rev. O. L. Lipscomb served as pastor in Texas and Oklahoma of the South Central District for more than thirty years, and Mrs. Lipscomb served in the Women’s Mission Department in the South Central of Oklahoma, the music and youth departments in the churches locally and statewide in Texas and Oklahoma in which she and her husband served.

A lifetime member of the Young Women’s Christian Association, she has been actively involved in many religious and charitable organizations throughout Texas and Oklahoma for more than fifty-two years. She once held the position as Vice-President of Church Women United of Lamar County with Joan Mathis serving as President. A faithful servant to humanity during her lifetime, she realizes that a life of “Service is a Life That Really Counts.”

Mrs. Lipscomb’s children are Paul E. Lipscomb, Othel Lipscomb II and the late Elbert Al Lipscomb. Grandchildren, Trey (Tomoka) Lipscomb, Courtney M. Lipscomb, Nadia Michelle and Maya Allen Lipscomb. Her two great-grandchildren are Trey and Tiara.

Funeral Services for Johnnie V. Lipscomb are scheduled for 2:00 PM Saturday, November 5, 2022, at New Salem Baptist Church. Bishop Connice Mayes will serve as pastor and eulogist. Interment will follow to Restlawn Garden Cemetery under the direction of Maxey Funeral Home.