Pauline Copes Johnson was a most tireless advocate for her ancestor Harriet Tubman (photos)

Students at Auburn’s Herman Avenue Elementary School listened in rapt attention one day in 1997 as Pauline Copes Johnson introduced them to the heroic life of her great aunt, Harriet Tubman.

It was just one of the many presentations that Tubman’s great, great, great grandniece gave during her life as the courageous abolitionist’s most tireless advocate.

Copes Johnson, who died this week in Auburn, told the group of first graders and kindergartners that their city was once home to the brave woman who had rescued hundreds of enslaved people.

She described how Tubman made 19 trips south to rescue more than 300 slaves, establishing the Underground Railroad, then served the Union Army in the Civil War as a nurse, spy and scout.

She told her audience that Tubman’s home was a local landmark