John Petty of Darlington, Maryland died on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He was the husband of Virginia D. "Ginger" Petty.

Baby John A. Petty came into this world on a balmy Saturday morning in late March 1931. He arrived during an interesting, albeit somewhat difficult time, in history. Herbert Hoover was president and the nation was in the grips of the Great DepressionIt was the year the airship Hindenburg exploded. It was the year construction workers completed the Empire State building, Congress adopted the Star-Spangled banner as our national anthem, and the Nazi party began its rise to power. He was part of a pretty good crop of babies born that year -- Boris Yeltsin, Robert Duvall, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle to name just a few.

But it's the life of John Petty -- J.A. as he is affectionately referred to by his wife, Ginger, but just Johnny by the rest of us -- we remember and celebrate today. Johnny was the third child of Elijah and Mae Petty, a young couple trying to scratch out a living on a little farm in South Charleston, Ohio. Six more Petty kids were yet to come. The Pettys were poor. Most farmers were back then. Crop prices were down 60 percent that year and dust storms ravaged the agricultural heartland.

Johnny started school with two pair of pants and one pair of shoes. "New" shirts made their way down from older brother, Tommy. Like the other kids, he didn't wear shoes during the summer. They saved them for colder weather. Even as a kid, Johnny worked hard to make the best of the bad times. He would get up at 4 in the morning to milk the cows before going off to school. After school there was always laborious field work to be done, chickens to feed and grain to transport to the mill.

Johnny was only 5 when his dad would hoist him up on the back of the farm horse and send him to the mill several miles away with bags of wheat to be made into flour. When there was time to play the Petty kids entertained themselves. They used sewing thread spools and rubber bands to make tiny cars. Sling shots were cut from tree branches and soldiers were produced from corn stalks. Maybe his work ethic had something to do with it, but Johnny Petty was a survivor.

He survived the Korean War, where he served on the front lines and once came within an inch of losing his life. At the age of 6, he survived a sledding accident with his older brother, Tommy, when their sled broke through the ice of a frozen pond. Their mom stripped the two boys to their shorts and perched them over the furnace heating grate until the boys thought they were baked. He even survived his sister Opal's cooking. When she cooked up a mysterious green stuff concoction that poisoned the entire clan, Mrs. Petty fed the kids raw eggs until they threw up. Ginger recalled.

The Petty clan moved to Harford County in 1947 and operated a small farm outside of Dublin. During his journey through life, Johnny developed into a pretty good singer, an above average basketball player and an All-Star power-hitting first baseman with the Aberdeen Proving Ground baseball team.

He married the prettiest girl in his school, raised a daughter, turned into a good gardener, mechanic and all-round handyman. He worked a short stint at the Bata Shoe combat boot plant in Belcamp before taking a job at Aberdeen Proving Ground. He put in 35 years at APG where he repaired and test fired the big guns used on tanks. When he retired from APG in 1986, he didn't really retire. He worked another 19 years at Clark's Hardware store in Dublin, where his younger brother, Harold, was his boss. Johnny didn't seem to care about being the boss. He was a helper. He was always available to lend a helping hand to a neighbor in need, but his top priorities were his family and his church.

"He was the best dad in the world," remembers his daughter, Terry. "He was kind, gentle and supportive, but firm when he needed to be firm. I remember that big hand on my butt a few times," she said. "I remember that look he would flash my way when he was not happy. It was his way of saying Terri Robin, that's enough."

He met his wife to be, Ginger, by chance. Johnny and Ginger's brother, Ben, worked at a flooring mill in Dublin and at lunchtime they would hop in the car and drive past Dublin School to look at the pretty girls. "See that girl, that's the one I want to meet," Johnny said to Ben as he pointed to a particularly attractive 8th-grader. "No problem," Ben responded. "That's my sister." It was less than love at first sight on Ginger's part. When Johnny asked her out to a movie, Ginger complained of a headache and sent him on his way.

Despite her rejection, Johnny and Ben went to the movie, "Forever Amber," a love story about a 17th century blonde bed-hopper starring Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde. It was showing at the theater on Main Street in Bel Air. Imagine Johnny's surprise when he saw Ginger with another guy sitting a few rows in from of him. But J.A. was no quitter. He eventually won Ginger's affection and they dated for two and half years before he asked her to marry him. "He was a slowpoke," Ginger recalled recently.

"He gave me a ring on Feb. 3, 1951," Ginger said. "The diamond was not very big, but I didn't care. I was in love.". They went to dinner at the Ball Park Restaurant on Route 1 to celebrate their engagement. A few weeks later, when another boy at school asked her to a dance, Ginger held out her arm, flashed the ring and proudly proclaimed: "I'm engaged." "It felt good," she recalled 57 years later. "I was just a young kid in love and I still love him."

Like every husband and wife, Johnny and Ginger had their moments of disagreement. But their clashes were not like most others. "When they fought" Terry said, "it was always Honey this, Sweetie that."

Let's flash back to the 1950s and the Korean War. Johnny was a corporal with the hundred and first airborne division. He didn't jump out of planes, but served as ground support. But his role was just as dangerous. Corporal Petty was driving an ambulance when it was hit by some explosive device. The vehicle was destroyed. The wheels were gone, the windshield was gone and the body of the vehicle was a mass of twisted metal. But by the grace of God, the young soldier didn't have a scratch on him.

When he left the Army in 1953, his uniform bore an assortment of decorations -- the United Nations Service medal, the Korean Service medal with three bronze stars, National Defense and good conduct metals.

His church work dates back to his teen years where he made profession and was baptized and joined Baptist View Church in Forest Hill. In 1968 he helped organize Pleasant Home Baptist Church in Airville, Pa. He helped organize the church in the morning and later on that same day he was ordained as a deacon.

For the past 19 years he has been a member of New Bridge Baptist Church in Colora. He was totally devoted to his church.

He helped construct and painted the fellowship hall.

He mowed the cemetery.

He served as a deacon.

He taught Sunday school and served as Sunday school superintendent.

He was the church clerk and treasurer.

If that weren't enough to keep him busy, Johnny was always there to help a neighbor in need, according to Ted Hutnik, who was lucky to live next door to Ginger and Johnny for nearly 40 years. When Ted's lawnmower wouldn't start, Johnny came to the rescue. When Ted was sick, Ginger and Johnny came to help care for him. When Ted's son's car, a 1969 Dodge Dart, broke down on Route 440, it was Johnny who got it running again. "That's what Johnny was all about," said Ted. "He would help everyone. He was dependable. He was a good neighbor, a good friend."

"He was a jack of all trades," said Ted. "He turned his garage into a family room. He built the new garage. He laid the bricks in the perfect line. It looks like a professional brick layer did the work." "Johnny could do just about anything," said Ginger. "He repaired televisions and radios as a side business."

One of the first signs of spring (sound would be a better word) was the roar of Johnny's roto-tiller. He plowed up half his yard and turned it into a vegetable garden. There was more, a lot more, corn, tomatoes, onions, squash, potatoes, raspberries, etc., than they could eat or can. He would give produce to neighbors and put more out on a card table at the end of the lane with a sign reading -- free. "He couldn't stand a weed in his garden," said Ted Hutnik. "He would be out there in the 95-degree heat pulling weeds, wiping sweat and swatting gnats."

One thing that Ginger and Johnny shared from the very beginning of their relationship was a love for singing. "We would ride along in our car -- some old wreck -- singing My Bonnie lies over the ocean. My Bonnie lies over the sea." In later years they both joined an 11-member gospel group called Heart and Souls that performed at senior homes and nursing homes in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Johnny was one of the lead singers. He had a strong, beautiful baritone voice that some say could be heard from here to California.

As a youngster, Johnny was a well mannered kid. His mother said he was a well behaved child. But Johnny had his run in with the law. Once again it involved his buddy Ben. Ginger tells the story this way: Johnny was told not to take the family car, but my brother Ben begged us to take him to the Carlins Amusement Park in Baltimore. It rained that night and windshield wipers didn't work very well back then. Johnny crashed the car into a concrete streetcar passenger loading ramp in the middle of the street.

The police brought the kids home and Mr. Petty met them at the end of the lane. We don't know what else happened that night, but Johnny saved his money until there was enough to get the car fixed. "That is the only thing I remember him doing that he should not have done," Ginger said recently.

His family, neighbors and friends remember Johnny as a gentle, good-natured, talkative and gregarious person who could make friends fast. Put another way: "He was a social butterfly," said daughter Terry. "When he went to an event, Dad opened and closed the door. He talked to everybody. He hugged everybody."

His voice was silenced, unfortunately, last year with the sudden and unexpected death of his only grandchild, Mary Beth Rollins. Mary Beth's death broke his heart some say and it never healed again.

We are going to miss you Johnny Petty, you touched each and every one of us in your unique way. But you will never be forgotten. The joy you brought to so many of us can never be taken away.

Written by Ted Shelsby

Memories and More

Darlington, Maryland