Carla Jo Johnson-Robbins, age 84, passed away on Thursday, July 18th, 2024 at home in Bowie, TX.

A graveside service will take place at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 27th, at Elmwood Cemetery in Bowie.

Carla was born on August 18th, 1939, the firstborn of the eight children of Mara “Mary” Dean Swaggerty and Jarrell Chester McDonald.

Carla passed away one month shy of 85 years here on earth. To her three grown children, 11 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren, she was known as Geemaw. Carla was a loving sister, daughter, aunt and mother among many other things.

Carla lived most of her life in Bowie, TX where she graduated 8th grade in 1953, married Bobby Joe Johnson in 1955, at the young age of 16, and two years after that, in 1957, at the age of 18, began her own family. Years later, Carla reconnected with her kindergarten sweetheart, Clifton Robbins and they enjoyed 16 years of marriage before her passing.

Carla worked at various jobs and positions throughout her life, including taking in laundry and ironing, babysitting, working in a textile plant at Haggar Slacks in Bowie, Texas, working in a Zenith TV plant in Springfield, Missouri, working as a librarian at the Bowie Public Library and working as a hospital insurance coordinator at the Bowie Memorial Hospital where she ended up retiring after many years.

Carla’s father was an over-the-road truck driver, and her mother was a textile worker during the years that followed the end of World War II and on through the many years until they retired. Her parents built a house on Miller Street in Bowie, Texas during the time of peace and prosperity following the war, a legacy that still stands proudly today as a living reminder of the many good years of McDonald family life that found shelter and love under its roof. Carla passed from this life peacefully at home, just two doors down from that house, a testament to the influence and imprint her parents and that house had on the children that lived there and knew its undying bond of love.

She is preceded in death by her loving parents, Jarrell Chester McDonald and Mary Dean Swaggerty, 5 siblings, Judy Haney, Jerry McDonald, Marilyn Cross, Carolyn Carter, Johnny (Bo) McDonald, her first husband, Bobby Joe Johnson, and 2 great-grandchild, Charity Faith Gonce and Benjamin Gazer Gonce.

Carla is survived by her husband, Clifton Robbins of Bowie, her three children, Randell Ray Johnson of Granbury, TX, Kimberley Kay Johnson Brock (Brian) of Henrietta, TX, Robert Joel Johnson (Sun Young) of Bowie, TX, her sister, Diane Mara of Wichita Falls, TX, her brother Kenneth McDonald (Dena) of Bowie, 11 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to one of the following Parkinson’s Research Foundations: Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, michaeljfox.org/give or The Parkinson’s Foundation, parkinsons.org/give.

Arrangements entrusted to the White Family Funeral Home of Bowie, Texas.