Youngest daughter of Henry and Brenda Johnson felt the burdens of being in the shadows of an older sister with a talented voice. As a child, it seemed everyone paid attention to Ciecily and compared her weaknesses to the greatness of her older sister. As she watched Ciecily get voice training lessons, better dresses, and private tutoring, it seemed like young Tonya was left with most of the chores, hand-me-down clothing, and a lack of help or concern of how she would ever make better grades. Just to get noticed, Tonya tried out for the church choir, but felt humiliated when compared to her older sister and declined their invitation to join.
Her family was turned upside-down when Ciecily decided she wanted to pursue opera singing on the advice of a voice teacher. Her parents flat out refused because they believed singing anything but singing to God was immoral and would lead to a loose lifestyle. In order to get her mind off that track, they fired her teacher and found her a new one at the university when they enrolled her in a music program for religious studies. Ciecily tried it for awhile, but dropped out and got a job so she could practice what she wanted to do in her own apartment with the teacher that encouraged her to follow her dreams.
With much begging and pleading, her parents failed to reach her and felt they had no choice but to disown her to make her come to her senses thinking she would rethink her life path before getting involved in a bad lifestyle. With Ciecily out of the picture, her parents started to pay more attention to what Tonya was doing and encouraged her to go to the university and study law. Tonya passed as an honour student and passed the BAR on the first try.
Just as she was starting off her career as a lawyer, her parents were starting to get ill. Her mother had cancer and her father was suffering from dementia. Resources were tight, so she could not afford a nurse to care for them and had to put her plans on hold to take care of them. She tried many times to contact Ciecily for some help, but at most she received a check for their medical care. Ciecily was far too busy touring to come back home. Even when she did manage to stop back at home, Brenda refused to let her in the home unless she renounced her path.
That left Tonya alone to take care of two parents and run a business she did not want, but it was expected of her because it was of historical interest that the property be maintained because this building housed many former slaves on their way to other parts of the country to seek their fortunes. As long as they were just passing through, it seemed the town curse did not apply to them.
When Brenda died, Tonya left many telegrams for Ciecily to come home and help with her father whom was getting worse. By this time her older sister was strung out on drugs when her career was not going so well. She could not even afford to send money to help because she spent it all on her habit and turned to prostitution. Tonya felt she had no other choice but to mortgage the home and put her father in a home so she could find her sister and bring her home. Ciecily refused to come back while she was out of her mind in a drugged haze, so Tonya returned home just in time to be at her father's bedside. All he could talk about on his last breath was Ciecily and how much he loved her.
When Ciecily finally came home and checked herself into the University hospital rehabilitation center, Tonya confronted her to notify her of the death of their father. She was told that in a will they were both given property that belonged to their mother and an aunt who died many years ago. There were already tract homes on the property collecting rent from the tenants. After delivery that piece of news and a letter their father left for her, she refused to have anything to do with her oldest sister.
Tonya was grateful to receive the rental checks because it allowed her to keep up with the ever growing responsibilities of running the bed and breakfast. Ciecily waited for the rental contract to expire and moved in the home because she really had no other place to go.
Tonya met Martin who was a guest in the b and b. Although her initial reaction of the man was he was a macho jerk, she did come to depend on his volunteer work around the building, but was concerned that this stranger from out of town had no intention of leaving. It seemed to her that anyone who came to a small town as a guest and doesn't leave has something to hide or something they are running from. Despite her suspicions, she fell in love with him and agreed to marry him.
Together, they had 2 boys, Monroe and Julius. As it seemed everything was running smoothly with her marriage, her children, and the family business, she decided to do something useful with her law degree and run for office to out the corrupt long-standing mayor, Parker Gannette who used his family's money and power to get in office and do the bidding of his father. She stood a good chance of winning when out of the blue Martin's former wife showed up causing her to step down to sort out her life. She suspected Parker had something to do with Keisha showing up.
Having grown up supporting her family, she felt she could not keep her sanity if she stayed with a man with such a past, so she allowed the marriage annulment to go through, but admired him enough to remain friends. She had every intention of running the bed and breakfast and giving Martin a space in the house for him to stay, but a fire ravished the building and forced them out. Martin vowed to rebuild it the way it was and in the meantime, she moved with the boys into the home she inherited. Martin shortly bought a home for sale across the street from them.
She decided to run for mayor once again in 1990 and won. She has been mayor ever since.
