Elizabeth Mahn

Elizabeth Johns Mahn died December 29, 2020, at home with her family, after a brief, non-COVID illness. She will be laid to rest in Pine Forest Cemetery (Homerville, Ga) alongside her parents Edith James Johns and Carroll Eustace Johns.

Born in 1942, the red-headed middle child was an early prankster and fearless adventurer. She was bitten while feeding a monkey, removed one of her own tonsils by falling on her stuck-in-the-ground arrow, and smashed her jaw jumping off the top bunk, all by the time she was five.

As a member of Clinch County High School’s women’s basketball team, the small but aggressive Beth at one point held the highest free-throw average in the state of Georgia. After graduating nursing school, she worked at Clinch Memorial Hospital as both a nurse and an EMT. An early advocate of reproductive rights and accessible heath care, she served as a public health nurse in Clinch and Atkinson Counties. In later life she briefly took up hang gliding, toured Europe with her sisters, and finally learned to cook. But her greatest joy was in simply spending time with her family.

She is survived by her daughters Denise Mahn (Patrick Considine) and Laura Mahn Kessler (Toby), grandchildren Jennifer Ruggirello Orr and David Ruggirello, great-grandchildren Amelia, Macie and Charlotte, and three sisters: Carole Johns Harris, Elizabeth Johns Upchurch, and Rose Johns Lankford.

Beth will be forever remembered by the unselfish love she showed everyone, her fierce joy in life, and her unfaltering, gentle kindness. Her loving family will miss her tremendously.

At the wishes of her children, the interment is private.