Obituary of NAOMI KETURAH VOLTA JOHN

NAOMI KETURAH VOLTA JOHN (nee BODKIN) Naomi passed away peacefully in her sleep on Wednesday, July 8, 2015. She was 98 years and 10 months young. Mama, as she was fondly called is predeceased by her parents, Sarah Joko Ristin and Samuel Theophilus Bodkin. Mama was born in Newton, near Freetown on September 5, 1916. At only two years old, she lost her mother to the Spanish Flu of 1918. Mama’s grandmother Kate and aunt Regina raised her up. Mama was a self-employed business woman throughout her life. She was skilled at needlepoint and designing traditional slippers valued by the Krio people. She married Frank John, a UBC pastor at 31, and supported him in Christian Ministry until his passing in 1982. Mama tirelessly demonstrated Christian love through her selfless kindness and hospitality all her life. Her home was always open to guests and out of her meagre income she provided for the less fortunate in the Bonthe Island community where she spent most of her adult life. Mama is survived by biological children, Regina Weller and Francess Kalon; adopted daughter Loretta; sons-in-law, Ernest Weller, Andrew Kalon and Kwame Arhin; grandchildren, Frank, Samuel, Gabriel, Lucy and Pehunya; great-grandchildren, Ernestine, Phebean, Olive, Henry, Bankie, Marvel, Nanakow, Gabriel, Juliana, Ezekiel, Daniel and David. She will be dearly missed by her nieces Mary Wilson and Ernestine Caulker; and nephew Christopher Bodkin along with all the family in Freetown and Diaspora and the Kallon family in the USA.