Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record

FARMINGTON – Vada Johnson left her mark on everyone she met – especially her students.
And on Saturday, March 29 (On what would have been her 128th or so birthday.), those students and others will gather at the Johnson House Bakery & Tea Room on Farmington Road – the same house where “Miss Vada” spent most of her life.
The similarities between the new use for the house and Miss Vada’s own lifestyle don’t go unnoticed by Laura Mathis, the new owner and operator of the tea room. She lives in another historic house next door, and is opening the house that Saturday so people can swap stories.
She’s already heard quite a few: like one man, who said that in Miss Vada’s classroom, when a girl entered, the boys stood up until the girl was seated.
She taught more than math and reading, although she knew those were necessary. She taught manners. And she put it upon herself to let her students know that there was a world well beyond Farmington and the school where she taught.
Like Miss Vada, Laura Mathis loves history. And she inherited many of Miss Vada’s things (She apparently never threw anything in the trash.), such as part of a hatchet from property where Daniel Boone once lived; letters; pamphlets from faraway places she would share with students; playbills from shows she had seen, only to come back to Farmington and somehow adapt them to the local stage; and diaries.
Miss Vada’s family was among the first to settle in Farmington, moving here from the family’s land at what is now Tanglewood Park.
The house where Miss Vada lived was built by her parents in 1892. She came back to Farmington to teach after graduating from Greensboro Normal College. She never had a driver’s license, and didn’t marry until age 80.
Laura is no stranger to the family; she has been catering their annual reunion for years.
“I found a couple of Miss Vada’s diaries,” Laura said. “She was very vocal about issues and would write Washington.”
She was busy in the community, at Farmington Methodist Church and as a founding member of the Ladies Aid Society.
Like Laura, “Miss Vada was always a woman of hospitality. And she had a great sense of humor.”
Visitors to the tea room who knew Miss Vada are quick to tell stories. “She taught manners and etiquette.”
Was she stern? Yes.
She didn’t allow any shenanigans in her classroom. One man, thinking back on his boyhood days, said he “cut up” is Miss Vada’s classroom. She didn’t say anything at first. “She asked him to come up to the desk after school,” Laura said. “She gave him instructions on how to find her house and to paint her white picket fence. He said it really taught him a lesson.”
Miss Vada wrote governor’s and presidents, asking them to send brochures or other information that she could share with students. “She was their internet,” Laura said.
When electricity came to Farmington, her lesson plan included a history of lighting, from candles to oil lamps to the modern day.
“It’s like a museum in here,” Laura said. “I just want to share it with everybody.”
She was going through a chest of Miss Vada’s belongings, and found a postcard about a service station with a tea room in the back, which she had visited. Miss Vada created a play for her students about a tea party, and the name of one of the characters was Laura.
“These things let me know that I was going in the right direction.”
Laura’s business has taken off since she started it a couple of years ago.
“It’s encouraging that people will drive quite a distance to come here,” she said. Customers dine in the historic house, or on a patio out back that overlooks “Miss Vada’s Garden.” There are also baked goods for sale daily. “To me, if they’re willing to drive here, we must be doing something right.”
Laura operated Herbal Accents (She believes in the natural ways.) from her home next door, and took the leap to purchase the Johnson home when it became available. She knew the family, and they knew she would take care of the historic artifacts.
“I thought it would be fun to feed people while they’re here. In the 1800s, tea parties were popular, so we decided to do something like that.”
Get a taste of both on March 29.