How did a photo of a Detroit woman's late father wind up on an East Valley restaurant menu?

John D'Anna | The Republic | azcentral.com

One day last summer as Juanita Johnson was leaving church, she got a text message from her daughter in Arizona with a photo attached. She opened it and saw the face of her father staring back at her.

"It took my breath away and made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck," said Johnson, who lives in Detroit. "My soul hasn't been able to rest since."

Johnson's father, Johnie B. Paul Sr., died nearly 50 years ago when she was 9. But she knew instantly the photo was of him.

The picture was taken in a club or restaurant and appears to be from the 1940s, long before he married Juanita's mother. He's wearing a coat and tie with a fashionable fedora tipped back on his head. He's seated with a woman, and both are looking into the camera, smiling. She has a beer in front of her and he has a Coke.

Juanita has no idea who the woman was. She also has no idea when the photo was taken, or how it happened to catch her daughter's eye in the most unlikely way.

"She said, 'Isn't this your dad?'" Juanita said. "I said, 'Where did you get this?'"

A familiar face

Her daughter, Brianna, is an engineer at a tech firm in Arizona, and was treating herself to breakfast at a restaurant sometime in late July when she saw the photo on the menu.

"I saw it and thought, 'this face looks extremely familiar,'" Brianna told The Arizona Republic. "I had seen photos of him that my mom had shown me over the years and thought, 'This looks like my mom's dad.'"

She took a picture of the photo with her phone, intending to send it to her mom. But with a "girl's trip" to Mexico in the offing, she forgot about it.

A few days later, she ran across it and texted it to her mom, who naturally had a million questions.

When Brianna got back, she wracked her brain trying to remember where she had taken it. All she could remember was that it was on a menu at a breakfast place somewhere in the Southeast Valley.

She went back through her credit card receipts and bank transactions and couldn't find anything for that day, so she thinks she might have paid cash.

She tried to find the meta data and geocoding on the photo through her iPhone, but had no luck. Even her phone's location feature was no help.

"I feel like a failure because I can't find out where I saw it," Brianna said. "I've exhausted every resource."

In church every Sunday

As the weeks and months passed, Juanita couldn't stop thinking about the photo.

"I knew I couldn't let the year close without finding answers," she said, so she decided to contact The Republic for help.

Her father died in November 1971 of a heart attack. He'd gone to the hospital with chest pains, was given a clean bill of health, and collapsed on his way out the door.

He'd been a supervisor at Detroit Public Works Department, where he'd worked for 25 years. He was also a reserve police officer and was the guy who organized neighborhood events and celebrations.

He was active in the Shriner's organization as well as Tabernacle Baptist Church, the same church where Juanita and her husband were married 36 years ago.

"He ensured each of us was in church every Sunday," Juanita recalled.

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Given the apparent age of the photo, she thinks it might have been taken while her father was in the Army, but she doesn't think he was ever stationed in Arizona.

His enlistment records show he entered the service in 1943 and mustered out in December of 1945.

While everything about the photo is a mystery, Juanita thinks there may be something a bit more cosmic at play.

Her daughter found the photo not long after what would have been Johnie B. Paul's 100th birthday.

"I do not believe in happenstance," she said in her initial email to The Republic. "She was thousands of miles from home, at that particular restaurant, at that particular time, that particular table with that particular menu with his picture..."

"I pray you will be able to help us solve this mystery."

John D'Anna is a member of The Arizona Republic/azcentral.com storytelling team. Last year, he helped solve the 80-year mystery of Arizona's Hatbox Baby. Reach him at john.danna@arizonarepublic.com, and follow him on Twitter @azgreenday.