Victoria Beaudin Johnson (1899-1976)

Teacher, Poet, Artist, Lecturer

Born April 3, 1899, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin

Died February 29, 1976, Detroit, Michigan

Teacher and poet Victoria Beaudin Johnson was born on April 3, 1899, in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, daughter of a French Canadian father and a mother from Wisconsin. Her father, Xavier Beaudin (1836-1920), was a pioneering farmer and lumberman in Wisconsin and lived to the ripe old age of eighty-four. At least three of the Beaudin offspring were teachers.

In her youth (1900 and 1910), Victoria Beaudin lived in Colburn, Wisconsin. In 1920 she was located in Pepin, Wisconsin, where she taught in the public schools. She received her bachelor's degree from State Normal School at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and married another teacher, Howard Lincoln Johnson, on February 7, 1925, in Lucas County, Ohio. By 1930, the couple were living in Detroit, Michigan. Four years later, they divorced.

Victoria furthered her education with a master's degree from a normal school in Bloomington, Illinois, and a doctorate from a school in Michigan. She is counted among Michigan poets and had verse published in a book by that title in 1936. Her one poem for Weird Tales is called "Disillusionment." It appeared in the December 1935 issue of "The Unique Magazine."

In addition to being a teacher and poet, Victoria Johnson was also an artist. She specialized in sacred art and traveled throughout the Midwest giving lectures on art. Her teaching career lasted forty-six years in all. Victoria Beaudin Johnson died in Detroit on Leap Day, February 29, 1976.

Victoria Beaudin Johnson's Poem in Weird Tales

"Disillusionment" (Dec. 1935)

Further Reading

If you can find a copy of the anthology 1936 Michigan Poets, you can read the following poems by Victoria Beaudin Johnson: "A Dialogue," "Open the Windows," "Understanding," "Experience," "Fidelity," and "Dreams."

Another poem by Victoria Beaudin Johnson:

The Second Crucifixion

They crushed the thorns into His brow and struck harsh blows that day.

O Lord, I would not treat Thee so--I only walked away.

They drove the nails into His hands and raised the cross on high.

O Lord, that men could be so vile--I only passed Thee by.

But blinded eyes and heart of stone will spurn a love like Thine.

O Lord, I struck the cruelest blows; the sharpest thorns were mine.

"Disillusionment," a poem by Victoria Beaudin Johnson, appeared in this issue of Weird Tales, December 1935. The cover art was by Margaret Brundage, another female artist of the Great American Midwest. The skull looks like it's gnawing on poor Conan's shinbone.

Revised and updated on April 3, 2021, Holy Saturday.

Text and captions copyright 2012, 2023 Terence E. Hanley