The daughter of Chief George Henry Martin Johnson and Emily Susanna Howells, she was educated at Hellmuth Ladies' College in London, Ontario.
She was matron for the Resident House at the YWCA in Troy, New York and then was assistant at the Presbyterian Convalescent Home in White Plains.
She was employed as a lady's companion for a senator's mother in New Jersey and then as assistant to the head of the Sheltering Arms Home in Philadelphia.
She opposed a suggestion that some of the funds raised be diverted towards the cost of her sister's monument in Stanley Park.
Johnson criticized archaeologist David Boyle for presenting what she felt was a distorted view of Six Nations culture.