Beatrice Bethel Johnson, first Black librarian in the School District of Philadelphia, retired business owner, and community advocate, has died at 96

Beatrice Bethel Johnson, 96, formerly of Philadelphia, the first Black librarian in the School District of Philadelphia, retired teacher, longtime business owner, one-time Sunday School director, mentor, and community advocate, died Monday, Aug. 21, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at her home in Chesapeake, Va.

Mrs. Johnson was hired as a teacher at Martha Washington Elementary School in West Philadelphia in the early 1950s. She earned a master’s degree in library science at Drexel University in 1972 and became the first Black librarian in the School District of Philadelphia.

She oversaw the school library at Martha Washington for more than two decades and made encyclopedias and other educational material readily available to interested students and parents until her retirement in 1993. She made it a point to teach Black history in addition to the traditional elementary school subjects, contributed local historical research to the U.S. Library of Congress, and discussed important civil rights issues of the day with her pupils.

“Her love for reading and books was her life’s calling,” her daughter, Adriana Bethel-Hibbler, and longtime friend, Karyn Brockington Conway, said in a tribute. “Every child that came into her presence left with a higher sense of themselves, their culture, and infinite possibilities of the life that was ahead of them.”

In her West Philadelphia community, Mrs. Johnson and her first husband owned two barbershops and rental property. She was chair of African American family festivals at Cobbs Creek Park and a board member of the park’s Laura Sims Skate House.

She served on the board of an Ellsworth Street civic association and was active with the Add B. Anderson School and Home Association, and a local Girl Scouts of America troop.

She was one-time head of the Sunday School department at St. Augustine’s Church of the Covenant, which merged with Calvary Episcopal Church in 2009. Later, she attended the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nashville, and Trinity Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, Va.

“With a gracious easygoing personality and warm sense of humor, Beatrice’s acts of service endeared her to all who knew her,” Bethel-Hibbler and Brockington Conway said.

Mrs. Johnson was a 1949 graduate of Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, in Virginia. She was president of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Hampton Alumni Association for more than 20 years and organized funding to help local students travel between Philadelphia and Hampton.

In 2014, she celebrated 65 years as a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She served earlier as chair of the Philadelphia Omega Omega Chapter’s African American History Committee.

She was a role model for countless neighbors and mentored hundreds of students and other young people beginning in the late 1950s. “She helped escort these children through the civil rights era,” Bethel-Hibbler and Brockington Conway said. “Her love, devotion, and commitment to the preservation of African American history was unparalleled.”

Beatrice Elnora Mosby was born in Philadelphia on July 12, 1927, and raised by her godparents after her mother died when she was 10. She graduated from now-defunct St. Paul’s Polytechnic Institute, a boarding school in Lawrenceville, Va., in 1947, and earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education at Hampton.

Her mother, Della, and daughter also graduated from Hampton.

Mrs. Johnson taught at first in Seaford, Del., before returning to Philadelphia in the early 1950s. She married Rudolph A. McKenzie in 1956, had daughter Adriana, and lived in Cobbs Creek. Her husband died in 1959.

She married Henry W. Bethel in 1970. He died in 1971. She married fellow teacher Frederick Johnson in 1978, welcomed his six children into their blended family, and they traveled to the Caribbean, Alaska, Thailand, China, and elsewhere. He died in 1999.

Mrs. Johnson moved to Nashville in 2001 to be near her daughter and grandchildren. The family relocated to Virginia in 2015, and she returned to Philadelphia as often as possible to visit old friends.

Mrs. Johnson was classy and elegant, her family said, and people were drawn to her “spirit and infectious smile.” She loved to shop. She was an engaging people person, and those who visited described her home as a “welcoming lighthouse for family and friends.”

“Granny was always known for telling long drawn-out stories multiple times,” said her grandson Bennett Hibbler Jr. “When you remind her that you have heard it before, she simply states: ‘Well, you get to hear it again.’”

“She left this world a better place,” Bethel-Hibbler and Brockington Conway said. “Her legacy of love, service, and sisterhood will continue on through her family and friends.”

In addition to her daughter, grandson, and friend, Mrs. Johnson is survived by three other grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and other relatives. A brother died earlier.

Visitation with the family is to be from 9 to 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 7, at Calvary-St. Augustine Episcopal Church, 814 N. 41st St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19104. A celebration of her life is to follow at 10:30.

Donations in her name may be made to Hampton University, Office of Development, 200 William R. Harvey Way, Hampton, Va. 23668.