Viola Johnson Decker was a school teacher in West Virginia and Ohio before her marriage. She was educated in Braxton County, West Virginia, at the one-room Middle Run School (near this cemetery) and at Sutton High School. She then attended Glenville State Normal School in West Virginia. She met her husband Ross Decker while teaching first grade at Marietta, Ohio. She and Ross were secretly married at Grayson, Kentucky on 31 July 1929 - she would have lost her job as a teacher during the depression if it became known she had a husband to support her. She and Ross lived in West Virginia and Ohio, then in Oakland, Maryland, Oak Park, Illinois. In 1947 they moved to Cumberland, Maryland, where they spent their remaining lives. Bio by her son, born 1932, living in February 2021. Her daughter died in January 2016.
Viola Johnson Decker was a school teacher in West Virginia and Ohio before her marriage. She was educated in Braxton County, West Virginia, at the one-room Middle Run School (near this cemetery) and at Sutton High School. She then attended Glenville State Normal School in West Virginia. She met her husband Ross Decker while teaching first grade at Marietta, Ohio. She and Ross were secretly married at Grayson, Kentucky on 31 July 1929 - she would have lost her job as a teacher during the depression if it became known she had a husband to support her. She and Ross lived in West Virginia and Ohio, then in Oakland, Maryland, Oak Park, Illinois. In 1947 they moved to Cumberland, Maryland, where they spent their remaining lives. Bio by her son, born 1932, living in February 2021. Her daughter died in January 2016.
Inscription
DECKER
VIOLA JOHNSON
DEC. 22, 1903
FEB. 15, 1981
ROSS OVERTON
JULY 9, 1905
JULY 7, 1983
MARRIED JULY 31, 1929
Gravesite Details
Graves of her and her husband located behind church building.
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