That Johnnie Jenkins is alive today is nothing short of a miracle. In May of 2025, Johnnie fell in her apartment and suffered a severe head injury. But you wouldn’t know it speaking with her today.
“You’ve heard of miracles, haven’t you? Well, I was one of them,” Johnnie began.
Unconscious for two weeks, Johnnie spent three weeks total in the hospital before being transferred to The Rehab Inn at Wesley Place on Honeysuckle for her extended recovery. After 64 days at The Rehab Inn, Johnnie was finally able to return to her assisted living apartment, her survival a miracle by all accounts.
Though she would rather not have gone through her injury and recovery, she is deeply grateful for the care and attention she received from The Rehab Inn.
“When you called them or needed them they were right there. They didn’t say, ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ Nothing like that,” Johnnie recalled. “It was wonderful. People were so nice. I didn’t want to leave them, but I did want to come back to my apartment. I have a patio and I sit out there a lot because I’m an outside person.”
Johnnie is a Dothan native and graduated from Cottonwood High School. Her husband, Donzell, worked for Sony Corporation for most of his career, and occasionally Johnnie worked there as well. Together they raised two sons in Dothan. Today, Johnnie enjoys being the proud grandmother of two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, with one more on the way.
She and her husband lived on 20 acres of land, where they enjoyed an active outdoor life together.
“I was kind of an outside person after we retired,” Johnnie shared. “We always had a garden and fooled with a lot of plants and things like that.”
When her husband passed away unexpectedly in 2017, Johnnie remained on the property for two more years. Though she was in good health, living alone became increasingly lonely.
“I didn’t like it at all. There was nothing wrong with me health-wise, but in the two years my sons decided I needed to come here, and this is where I came,” Johnnie said. That was in October of 2019, to be precise. “This is home. I say, ‘I’ve got to go home.’”
Today, Johnnie fills her days enjoying many of the things Wesley Place has to offer. She plays Bingo each Friday, enjoys table games with friends, and still finds opportunities to indulge her love of gardening. Two master gardeners recently visited the community to give a presentation about plants and helped residents begin plantings of their own.
“I have some potted plants and planted some seeds two or three weeks ago that are already up an inch or two high. People from a garden center came and helped us with them. It was fun.”
If you ever take a tour of Wesley Place, chances are you might stop by Johnnie's apartment. As the first apartment on the first hallway from the main entrance, she often welcomes prospective residents and their families by allowing them to see what a fully furnished apartment can look like. Its convenient location also means she frequently sees the Rehab team members who helped her through her remarkable recovery.
“I know everybody, and they know me. They still see me in the hall and make to-do over me, ‘oh, you look so good’ and ‘your hair has grown back’. See, I didn’t have hair on one side, and it’s grown back to normal,” Johnnie explained.
“I don’t have any complaints,” Johnnie said. “I’ve never regretted coming at all.”
For Johnnie, Wesley Place is much more than the place where she recovered from a life-threatening injury. It is the place she proudly calls home—a community filled with caring people, cherished friendships, and daily reminders that miracles sometimes come in many forms.
