August 18, 1939 – July 18, 2024
BOWIE – Carla Jo Johnson-Robbins, 84, passed away on July 18, 2024 at home in Bowie.
A graveside service will take place at 10 a.m. on July 27 at Elmwood Cemetery in Bowie.
Carla was born on Aug. 18, 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 where she graduated eighth grade in 1953, married Bobby Joe Johnson in 1955 at the young age of 16, and two years after that, in 1957 and 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, working in a Zenith TV plant in Springfield, MO, 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 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; five siblings, Judy Haney, Jerry McDonald, Marilyn Cross, Carolyn Carter and Johnny (Bo) McDonald; her first husband, Bobby Joe Johnson and two great-grandchild, Charity Faith Gonce and Benjamin Gazer Gonce.
Carla is survived by her husband, Clifton Robbins, Bowie; three children, Randell Ray Johnson, Granbury, Kimberley Kay Johnson Brock (Brian), Henrietta and Robert Joel Johnson (Sun Young), Bowie; sister, Diane Mara, Wichita Falls; brother, Kenneth McDonald (Dena), Bowie; 11 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to one of the following Parkinson’s Research Foundations: Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research at michaeljfox.org/give or The Parkinson’s Foundation at parkinsons.org/give.
Arrangements entrusted to the White Family Funeral Home of Bowie.

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