Ventura County (Ventura)
By Pat Alston
Daily Journal Staff Writer
VENTURA - JoAnn Johnson was 4 when her father died unexpectedly. She was still in grade school when her mother was diagnosed with emphysema.
Those life-changing events colored the way she and her older sister looked at the world around them, she said, and pushed them toward self-reliance.
"My sister and I were very independent," Johnson said.
She started earning an after school paycheck w... (continued)