By the time she was 43, Rowena Jeanne Johnson had left one husband and outlived three others. She buried them on a small patch of ground on her farm overlooking St. Mary's Bay, marking all three graves with a simple hand carved cross and erecting a small wooden fence around the graveyard to keep marauding animals and curiosity seekers out.
She kept a second cemetery for her children, four out of five who had died not long after birth and Davey, who had been stillborn and yet a third, much more extensive for the animals. Perhaps because she was alone, perhaps because she had never gotten to raise a child, perhaps because it was just her nature, Miss Rowena's world was so crowded with kindness that there was barely room for anything else.
She kept chickens and once or twice a week would harness up her old plough horse and drive down from the woods to sell eggs and sometimes tomatoes or sweet corn. She kept a vegetable garden, a small herd of goats, one milk cow,a flock of ducks and a pig named Doc. Every stray dog or cat or child gravitated to her and she took them all in without hesitation. One hunting season, an orphaned fawn appeared at the edge of the woods and though it took weeks of coaxing and feeding patience, Miss Rowena eventually worn her over, named her Flower after the story of Bambi and added her to the menagerie. There was a rabbit with three legs, a trio of homeless raccoons,
several small foxes she had taken in when the breeding farm went out of business, and an entire family of comorans that settled on the coastline one fall and never left. After some years it was said that not only could Miss Rowena heal broken wings but that she could mend homelessness and broken spirits as well. The miracle of her farm was that there was harmony and acceptance among all the animals - there were no predators, no quarrels between species, no territorial disputes - cats, dogs, foxes and rabbits all lived together quietly and in peace. Nana said that it flowed from Miss Rowena herself, that she had never known a kinder or more compassionate woman. Islanders began bringing her sick and maimed animals and Miss Rowena would nurse them back to health in exchange for labor or chores, bread, flour, a length of fencing, a repaired wagon wheel or whatever they could offer. Money never changed hands. Miss Rowena would appear on her porch in her sunbonnet and long skirts that were always dragging in the dust and her black work boots. She and her guest would settle into straightbacked wicker porch chairs and negotiate - a mucked out stall for a broken hind leg, a garden weeding for a stomach virus, a new coat of paint on the barn in exchange for a week's worth of boarding for a new foal. She turned no one away, believing that agreement could always be found through patience and mutual need. Island children gladly walked the the three miles uphill to her farm almost every day to help her feed and tend her diverse flock. We leaned about responsibility and hard work and every time we had to add a new grave, we learned about life and death. Every animal was given a service with a prayer, a Bible reading, and a proper burial because Miss Rowena believed that each and every life had mattered.
Rowena Jeane Johnson's peaceable kingdom was open to all.
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