1 | P a g e

The Death of Robert Johnson’s Wife – Virginia TravisLiving Blues #226 Vol. 44, #4

Bruce Conforth, PhD

Of all the events in Robert Johnson's short life the one

that might have had the most impact may have been the death of

his young wife Virginia. Robert and Virginia Travis were

married in Penton, Mississippi on February 17, 1929. They

lied on their marriage record: Robert claiming he was 21 and

Virginia stating she was 18. In reality he was only 17 and

she was 14.

Johnson had already been a performer before getting married,

beginning to play for jukes, parties, and picnics as early as

2 | P a g e

1928. But apparently he loved his young wife enough to put

his music playing on hold and try family life and farming, an

occupation from which he had always run.

The young couple moved to a farm in Bolivar County,

Mississippi where Johnson’s older step-sister Bessie and her

husband Granville Hines were living. There the couple lived

for over a year until a pregnant Virginia decided to leave

Robert and the farm to have her baby in her family’s care in

Penton. Virginia made the trip to her family but died in

childbirth at 2 a.m. on Thursday April 10, 1930, without

Robert by her side. G.M. Shaw of Robinsonville listed her

cause of death as “acute nephritis [child birth] eclampsia

[sic].” She and her baby were buried shortly thereafter in

Dark Corner Cemetery.

3 | P a g e

Johnson scholars have noted that although Virginia died on

April 10, the April 11, 1930 census for Beat 3, Bolivar

County, Mississippi still listed Virginia as living there with

Robert.

Whoever provided the census taker with that information did

not know that Virginia had died the day before.

There is good reason to believe that the information was

not provided by Robert Johnson, but rather by a neighbor or

4 | P a g e

his step-sister Bessie, for one did not have to be physically

present for a census enumerator to write down the data they

were given.

Rather, with Virginia gone to Penton, Robert seems to have

taken the opportunity to do some guitar playing, working his

way up Highway I to what he expected would be his wife and

newborn child. This speculation is given further credibility

by the family stories claiming that when Robert arrived in

Penton he did so some time after Virginia and the baby had

passed, and with guitar in hand. Virginia's family and the

community blamed him for her death because he had been out

"playing the devil's music." He may have taken their claims to

heart. Whatever the case, after Virginia’s death Robert

Johnson embarked on a life of travel . womanizing. drinking,

and music. But exactly where was Virginia when she died. and

where was she buried? Just where is Dark Corner Cemetery?

Attempts to find any record of Jesse or Mattie Travis .

Virginia's father and mother as listed on her death

certificate have thus far come up empty. So did Virginia go

to her parents’ home to have her baby, or did she head to

5 | P a g e

some other location? Another census record from Monday

April 7, 1930 provides the answer: Virginia was staying on

a cotton plantation with her grandmother Lula Thomas, along

with five of Thomas’ other grandchildren. Virginia’s

parents may not have even been with her when she died.

The April 7 census record is the last formal

acknowledgement of Virginia while she was still living. No

one knew that she and her unborn child would be dead in less

than 72 hours. And Robert Johnson had not yet arrived in

Penton.

One has little success if one tries to find any

historical records of Dark Corner Cemetery in Mississippi,

but Dr. Richard Taylor, director of the Tunica Museum was

able to locate an undertaker in Tunica who recalled that

Dark Corner Cemetery was the previous name of a small

cemetery that sits just behind the current Rising Sun

6 | P a g e

Missionary Baptist Church on Green River Road, off Old

Highway 61 in Penton, just over the Tunica/DeSoto County

line. Although her grave marker, if one ever existed, is

either gone or overgrown, here rests Virginia Johnson,

Robert Johnson’s wife, and their only child.