A small, wreath-like plaque above our sink brings encouraging reflection:

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others stay for awhile and touch our hearts so deeply that we are never the same.”

Ed Johnson touched hearts like that. Though our paths crossed briefly, meeting him was like placing the last piece into a jigsaw puzzle. His Glade Valley School pupils and close friends describe him best through shared experiences:

Patsy Sadler Wingler (class of ’63) describes him as “The best example of how a Christian should live. He was patient, kind, and thoughtful. He was a man of integrity with principles. He and Mrs. (Frances) Johnson always made time to listen with an understanding heart. His quiet manner and insight made people feel comfortable. He not only taught the ways that the Bible teaches us to walk. He walked the way he taught.”

Jane Eidson (class of ’54) first met Ed when she was 14, and recalls his gentle but expectant nature as the school’s music director — a job he agreed to hold for one year, but willingly extended for many more. She, Carlene Bovender, and Ed occasionally sang as a trio. Jane often played the piano while he directed the choir or played his violin.

“He was a gentle man,” she recalls, “never raising his voice in anger, and I know we must have disappointed him at times.”

James Eason (class of ’52) recalls a different facet of Ed’s nature. As the students entered the auditorium for services, the man who served as a violinist, singer and music director stood at center stage, wearing a long overcoat.

“When we were seated he shrugged off the coat and stood there, bound in chains!” Ed’s chapel message cautioned students to rid themselves of sin’s chains, as he slowly removed his for effect.

“There!” he exclaimed. “Now I am free of the chains of sin!”

The students snickered and called his attention to a small chain shackling his wrist to a belt loop.

“Oh, it’s such a tiny little chain, it’s not important,” he taunted.

“Look how free I am otherwise!”

But the chain complicated his turning the pages of his written notes. At last he removed even that one, joyfully expressing his freedom and making the point.

Robey Sherrill (class of ’56) recalls Mr. Johnson’s trying not to laugh at jokes told about people from his home state of Minnesota. He also struggled in vain to keep a straight face when Robey (boss of the GVS chicken house) tossed a dead chicken into the furnace of the girls’ new dorm, leaving the iron door open just far enough to fill the building with the smoldering bird’s stench.

The boys’ dorm (which had been the girls’ dorm originally) burned to the ground in 1953, and Robey remembers Mr. Johnson rounding up the boys like a mother hen. Ed reassured the distraught students while he and his wife, Frances, watched all their personal belongings, a treasured violin, and everything the boys owned go up in flames.

“He answered his call to God as our dean,” he recalls, “and to us as a friend in a time of great distress. All of us (were) thankful that no life was lost.”

Mrs. Guerrant, the music teacher, overheard Ms. Dexter Sheets Englebert (class of ’57) singing while she cleaned her room, and suggested that she try out for the choir. Though Dexter was intimidated by the idea, she managed to avoid that step and joined the group.

Joe Brinkley (class of ’60) has lofty praises for the man. “He established a high expectation of how he would like to mold a person into an honest, God-fearing, and well-rounded individual that the community as a whole would respect and look up to. He had a profound effect upon me and the youth he served at a critical time in our development. If I had the ability to bestow upon him a title, it would be ‘Saint Edward C. Johnson.’ ”

Diane Ramsey (class of ’61) wrote of her admiration for Ed and his love for music, especially “Handel’s Messiah.” When he spoke of the choir’s singing that grand piece so beautifully, she reminded him that “It was because of the love and training you gave to your choir.”

Ms. Stuart Kaitz (class of ’61) was surprised that he let her — who once “could not carry a tune” — join the choir after several lengthy practice sessions.

“His star is surely shining in heaven, this night, and oh, my, what beautiful music he’s playing for Him on his violin,” she writes. Danease Newell (Class of ‘66) wrote, “The fruit of the Spirit is love and Mr. Johnson was all of that.”

Tall men cast long shadows. The one cast by Edward C. Johnson’s character was longer still. It was shaped by the Son.