Johnnie Sue Dodenhoff Fulton

Johnnie Sue Dodenhoff Fulton was born to Florence “Louise” Poole and John Ramsey Dodenhoff, Jr., in Columbia, South Carolina on March 11, 1956.

“Johnnie Sue” to those who knew her from way back, she was a light. A 1974 graduate of A.C. Flora High School, she served in student government and even got a call from Lee Atwater to start the Young Republicans Club there. (Mr. Atwater was barking up the wrong tree.) She graduated with a degree in Special Education from Furman University in 1978 and succumbed to pressure from her parents to go to law school.

She graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1981, and spent the next forty years of her life practicing law first as a public defender, and then as a plaintiff’s attorney. Scandalously, she was in some of the first television ads for lawyers in the state. She ran for office in Greenville County as a Democrat in 1996, and her family still has the “Join the Fulton Force” t-shirts to prove it. She sat on Governor Jim Hodges’ Commission on Women; was Chairwoman of the Greenville County Democratic Party; and marched in the Women’s March in DC in 2017. She opened her law practice with her law partner, Andrew Barr, in October 1993, and had the privilege of practicing law with her dear friend who became family, and representing the working people of upstate South Carolina for the rest of her life. Her daughter, Valerie Elizabeth Fulton, joined their practice in 2019, to Valerie’s joy and Johnnie’s warning that Valerie worked for Andrew, not her.

Raised Southern Baptist, she quit that and was confirmed as an adult at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Spartanburg in the 1980s. She married her husband, Allan Phillips Fulton, on September 7, 1985. She led missions to Haiti for the Diocese and her actions recruiting even convinced one family friend, a dentist, to go into the priesthood. She was a member of Christ Church in Greenville where she taught Sunday School, and loved to wake up at the crack of dawn for the 8 AM Sunday Service.

She was impressive and a little scary, but she was so much more than her professional life. Her proudest accomplishment was being a wife to her husband of nearly 36 years, Al, and a mother to her two children, Valerie and William Watson “Will” Fulton. This was an especially big accomplishment because Al told her when they were dating that he was never getting married or having kids. Just goes to show what happens when you try to argue with Johnnie Sue.

She was hysterically funny, knew (most) words to Carole King’s entire Tapestry album, cussed like a sailor, drove like a bat out of hell, baked sourdough bread, complained about dog hair but always picked up strays, and made anyone who knew her feel at home. If we only have one great love in our life, she was ours, and we are so lucky.

We know we will see her in Heaven and we know Louise, Big John, and her nephew Luke Dodenhoff have welcomed her with joy, but the family she leaves behind are so very sad to say goodbye so soon.

Along with her husband and children, she is survived by her sister, Ann Navin of Newnan, GA; brothers, John (Karen) of Greenville, and David (Connie) Dodenhoff, of Columbia; niece Jenna Dodenhoff of Columbia; nephew Michael (Lilly) and their son, Tommy Navin of Newnan, GA; niece Lydia Watson of Ohio; countless beloved cousins in Springfield, SC and beyond; and adopted family Barbara Gholikely and Carman Jefferson of Greenville.

Memorials can be made to Christ Church – Missions, Partners in Health, or Furman University. You can also honor her memory by laughing too loud, dancing in public, singing “Desperado” at the top of your lungs, and putting your hands in dirt and gardening.

A visitation will be held Sunday, June 13, 2021 from 2:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. at Thomas McAfee Funeral Home, Downtown. A Memorial Service will be held Monday, June 14, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. at Christ Church Episcopal.

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