She was remembered for the exceptionally high salary she commanded as a Black "Fat Lady" performer in the United States, especially in northern Midwestern cities including Chicago and Cincinnati.

Johnson was born into slavery on a farm in Henry County, Kentucky, possibly either under the ownership of the family of Boyd Clubb or Everett Millard Bryant.

[12] As Johnson was Black, she was sometimes compared to Millie and Christine McKoy, African-American conjoined twins who had also been born enslaved, but unlike her were sold into the sideshow business.

[15] They had between five and ten children together, including Nancy, Simon, William, and John, and lived in the area of Lockport and Bethlehem, KY.[16] Johnson was able to take a vacation and visit her family in Kentucky in the summer of 1888 just before her death.

Called "as great an attraction in death as in life," it was reported that twenty pallbearers carried it down a street lined with hundreds of people before it was lowered into the ground with a derrick.