Obituaries

Pauline Johnson Jones Engraving and Printing Employee

Pauline Johnson Jones, 99, a retired Bureau of Engraving and Printing employee and an active member of St. Augustine Catholic Church in Washington, died Nov. 18 of congestive heart failure at her home in the District

Mrs. Jones was born in Washington and graduated from Armstrong High School and Jennifer Business College.

From an early age, the church was a vital part of Mrs. Jones's life. She recalled as a young girl attending the church next door to her home, St. Aloysius Parish, where she was required to sit in the back because she was black and wait until last to receive the Holy Eucharist.

"I knew that something was very wrong, and as soon as I was old enough, I walked across town to St. Augustine," she told family members years later. Founded by free people of color in 1858, St. Augustine was her church for the rest of her life.

She forged a lifelong bond with the Oblate Sisters of Providence and recalled traveling to Baltimore in 1929 for the Oblate Sisters Centennial. At St. Augustine, she was initially a member of the Junior Christ Child Society and then the Senior Christ Child Society. In 1927, she became a member of St. Augustine Sodality and twice served as prefect.

In 1950, she was part of a U.S. delegation that made a pilgrimage to Rome and had an audience with Pope Pius XII at his summer home. In 1979, she was invited to the White House to meet Pope John Paul II.

She joined St. Augustine parishioners who took part in Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington in 1963 and protested South Africa's apartheid policies at the South African Embassy in the 1960s.

Although she lived through racism and discrimination, "she was convinced God loved her and made her in His own likeness and expected better, not just for her church, but for her nation," said the Rev. Patrick Smith, St. Augustine's pastor, in his funeral homily.

Her church activities included teaching Sunday school and serving on the Parish Pastoral Council. She also served as church historian and established the St. Augustine Archives and the annual Trinity Sunday Committee to celebrate the founding of the St. Augustine Church and School. She was a founding member of St. Monica Auxiliary and a member of the Iota Phi Lambda Sorority.

In 1989, then-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry appointed Mrs. Jones to the D.C. Commission on Aging. She also was a member of the Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators and the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, and she was an organizer of the 14th and U Streets Coalition.

From 1942 to 1972, she worked as an examiner and supervisor at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. In retirement, she became a founding member of the Retired Happy Hearts, a group of former bureau employees.

Her husband, Walter A. Jones, died in 1989.