Truckin' on the Western Branch

Eddie Russell said, “I played a year of baseball on the team sponsored by A. W. Johnson and we were the first in the league to have uniforms, thanks to A.W. who was a ‘godfather’ to the boys in Churchland.”

Reese Johnson said, “A.W. would babysit me while momma shopped, and he taught me how to make change when I was four or five years old. He made customers wait while I figured it out.”

Ed Gaskins remembered, “A.W. Johnson was a friend to the farmers—carried us on the books until the crops came in. He was a community-minded man.”

Ellen Godwin remembered, “We walked to A.W.’s store from school when we didn’t get caught—the rest of Churchland was just farmland with very few houses.”

Anne Barbour Schwab said, “One time A. W. Johnson passed me on West Norfolk Road right after I got my license and I was speeding. He called my mother who knew all about it by the time I got home. You could do nothing without someone knowing all about it.”

Billy Hargroves said, “The branch library was in the back room of A. W. Johnson’s store—staffed partially by women in the Portsmouth Service League.”

Giving Back to the Community A.W. Johnson’s philanthropy—whether it was via time, money, or caring—was an embodiment of the spirit of connection in the community. As the area has grown, so has the population, and what used to be a neighborly gesture now oftentimes comes from organized community foundations and service groups— the Rotary, the Kiwanis, the Lions, garden clubs, and more. The Portsmouth Service League is one of the most active groups in the city. Begun in 1955 by 34 community-minded young women, the league has flourished with volunteers serving numerous other agencies. To date the league has raised and invested more than $1 million in the community and has been a major force in the development of the Portsmouth Girls Club, the Naval Shipyard Museum, the Children’s Museum of Virginia, and the restoration of the historic Women’s Club building in Glensheallah.

Alisa Tynch Smith , a recent president of the Portsmouth Service League, is a 1994 Churchland High graduate. She said that the league, which limits its membership to women 40 years old and under, has 60 active and 20 provisional members as well as 100 sustaining, former active, members. When a friend invited her to join a few years ago, she saw it as an extension of the way she views the community. “I was born in Japan when my father, David Tynch, was in the Air Force, but I came back to Churchland when I was in second grade,” she said. “Churchland has always had a small town feel—like an extended family.”

Smith is also the Executive Director of the Portsmouth Schools Foundation.

Alisa Tynch Smith. Image by Sheally

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