Johnny Eugene Lemons 1935-2001

When you are a little girl, they sometimes tell you that you will never find anyone to compare to your daddy, and I believe that.  However, I also believe the same about my beloved Papa.  There is not a day goes by that i do not miss him or think about him.  I said in a previous post that I was going to start writing posts on ancestors as I go along so I figured I would start with Papa.  He was loved by so many and done so much good for everyone.  He was a 2nd generation forestry for the state of TN.  His father was also forestry, and now my daddy makes the 3rd generation.  Papa was with Forestry for 35 and 1/2 yrs before he retired in 1995.  He was a lifetime member of the Rhea County Rescue Squad and was the first Captain of the Grandview Fire Dept.  I was so proud of my grandfather, i believe that he lived everyday of his life to help someone else in need.  He would go out west to CA, OR, etc to fight wildfires and he always came back with a beard.  Him and my mawsie had a huge bedroom in their house when we were little he wanted us in there with them to keep us safe so he had their ca queen size bed on one end of the bedroom and our full size bed on the other.  He always looked after us.  He also used to always give me orange juice with ice when i was sick.  We grew up just 3 houses down the street from theirs we could walk there. When he died I felt the world had been dropped out from under me. He had been sick for a long time with Parkinsons's.
At his funeral , Rev. Randall Dye officiated and good gosh, poor Randall, he was grieving also but every word he spoke of my grandfather was true. We couldnt of asked for a better friend of the family to do papas service.  randall done great.  I will always remember my Papa as living each day to help
someone else.

papa passed the day before my mothers birthday and was buried on mawsie and papa's anniversary. The good thing is now there anniversary has another good thing about it.  My daughter Katie was born on jan 22., on their anniversary. they would of been married 55 years on the day she was born.  also another side note, if you know me or the family you know my grandfather commited suicide due to his illness, the Parkinson's had took over and he had dementia and was causing all kinds of side effects.  The only reason I told this is because during this time, the family had too many friends to list to come forward and basically help do anything.  My best friend Angel, came as soon as she heard, and stayed with me for a week.  Almost got fired for being with me and she didn't care this is how much she cared about me and my family.  We call her the adopted daughter just like her family thinks of me.   This is how loved my grandfather was.

I could write pages and pages on the stuff that he has done.  One other thing sticks out.I was a dispatcher for 12 years and one of the police officers that had been around a long time, told me that papa was his guardian angel that he went with him to calls here on the mountain, that if dispatch couldn't get him on the radio that he knew papa would be there in a min to check on him... Now I am grateful because he is my guardian angel.