On April 3, 1931, on a farm East of Lawton, Oklahoma, the wife of Willie Doye, Ruth Pinkey Doye (nee Deen), gave birth to their fifth living child, Mary Virginia Doye. Willie Doye was born March 7, 1893, of Willham Doye and Luisa Jacobite soon after their arrival in Warranton, Missouri from Germany. Mary's mother was born February 2, 1895, in McKinney, Texas, of Charles Henry Deen and Martha Jemina Deen (nee Shaddix). Mary's father, a lifelong farmer, later moved the family to a wheat farm east of Enid, Oklahoma.

Mary graduated from Enid High School in 1948, and attended Enid Business College, obtaining an associate degree in business in 1950. After graduating from business college Mary moved to Lawton to live with her late sister, Fern Brooks. Mary got a job at Ft. Sill in the Form Five Section, the office charged with keeping records for the pilots who flew the little L-19 "Grasshoppers" used as forward observers for the Field Artillery. Mary was soon promoted to Section leader, she said because she could read her immediate Supervisor's shorthand.

Mary loved music and as a member of Lawton's Central Baptist Church Choir soon caught the eye of Harry Johnson, a Lawton native who was attending Cameron Junior College. Mary became Mrs. Harry C. Johnson on December 22, 1953, and moved to Norman to put Harry through the last year and a half of his Petroleum Engineering Degree at O.U. After graduating in February of 1955, Harry went to work for The Humble Oil and Refining Company in a district office in Winters. Texas. While there, they started a family; first with Harry Warren who was born in Abilene, Texas on December 31, 1956, and next with Mary Catherine who was born in the same Abilene Hospital on February 1, 1958.

In 1963, a career change brought Mary and her family to Oklahoma City, where they have remained with the exception of a two-year stint in Farmington, Connecticut. Mary was never at a loss for things that captured her interest. Her first priority was always her children and husband, but there was time for the Putnam City Baptist Church Choir, teaching five-year-olds in Sunday School, and other Church activities. She continued an earlier love for bowling and accumulated a closet full of trophies over the years until she abandoned bowling for Golf. In a bowling league she once fell short of a perfect 300 by missing a strike in the last roll of the last frame. There weren't as many trophies in golf, but she did receive one for the most improved golfer at Hefner. Mary had wanted to fly ever since her first job at Ft. Sill. In 1980, at age 49, Mary rolled out the little Piper Warrior that her husband had replaced with a jet helicopter for his transportation needs, jumped into it with an instructor and earned her pilot's license.

Never at a loss for things to do, Mary was active in the Lake Hefner Ladies Nine Hole Golf Association, the Salvation Army Auxiliary, The Republican Women's Club, The Oklahoma City Christian Women's Club, and BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). But she wasn't through with the wild blue yonder either - On her 80th Birthday, she parachuted from a small airplane flying 10,000 feet above Cushing, Oklahoma. Mary was married to the love of her life for 70 years. Friends occasionally asked Mary the secret of success for her marriage. She always replied that it was because she just let her husband do whatever he wanted to do. They both did pretty much what they wanted to do, but in a way that afforded the independence needed in a marriage, while strengthening the bond between them.

Mary is survived by her husband, Harry Johnson; her children, Warren Johnson and his wife Becky, Mary Catherine Haney and her husband Michael, of Oklahoma City; her grandchildren; Rege Peck, his wife Emy and their sons Jackson and Mason of Portland, Oregon, Jessica Johnson and her son Miles of Noble, Oklahoma; Gregory Peck, his wife Julie, and their son Henry and daughter Hanna of Austin, Texas.; Ross Johnson in Minneapolis, Minnesota, his former wife Brooke and their daughter Ivy Ruth of Fargo, North Dakota; and Whittney Wacker and husband Greg of Englewood, Colorado; and older sister, Elza Queen.

Memorial services will be held at 2:00pm, Tuesday, March 26 at Putnam City Baptist Church.

The family requests in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Salvation Army or to the donor's favorite charity.