Exciting News!

 
My first book has launched!
By-Gosh Johnson and the Long Walk: 
The Story of John A Johnson.

  https://a.co/d/0djCJEQw  

In 1868, Johan’s dreams of building a life on the family farm in Byarum, Sweden, have slipped beyond his reach. With little future ahead except conscription or a hard life as a hired farmhand, he faces an unbearable choice: remain in the only home he has ever known or risk everything for the promise of America.

Leaving behind the familiar countryside of rural Sweden, Johan begins a journey marked by optimism, heartbreak, hope, and unexpected joy. Thousands of miles from home, he must navigate the hardships of settling in a new land alone.

A sweeping story of courage, family, and the immigrant dream, this novel reminds us that sometimes the life we find is greater than the one we imagined.

 

100 Years

 My dad, Earl Milan Johnson, was born on October 23, 1921. For his hundredth year, I'm publishing some writing of his that I found a few years after he died. Here is the first installment.

Oil and Gas

By Earl Johnson

Another early recollection was oil wells and gas wells and especially the drilling of the wells.

Dad, Don, and I would go to a drill rig almost every evening and sit and watch the drilling operation. We heard many tales from the driller and tool dressers and made many acquaintances including a driller by the name of Herb Long. He would become a partner in a wildcat drilling operation later with Dad and Grandfather, John A. Johnson.

As boys, Don and I had our own play drill rigs with which we drilled our own wells using the pully, rope, and bit method. I remember standing outside North Union School and seeing the Chinburg well blow in, spewing oil and water into the air high above the derrick.

There was a booster station right next to North Union School which was used to pump crude oil to the refineries.

There were two refineries in McPherson, the Globe Refinery which later became the Coop refinery and is still in existence as the CHS Refinery, and another whose name I can’t remember.

Don and Earl with their mother, Ida Johnson.
1937

I remember one incident of an explosion where two oil company workers were killed. They were laid on an A-frame truck, and were brought out past North Union School, a sight that several of us remember. There were no ambulances in those days.

There was an influx of oil company workers into the community at that time. They lived in temporary shacks, or tents, or in their cars. I remember a shack and tent village that was set up in the Roseburg timber. The Skates family, the Reynolds, the Hallenbacks, the Brinkmans, the Boyds, the Byerlys, the Donhains, the Birges, and other oil company families became important citizens of the community.

Alfred Hallenback was in my class and was later killed in an oil field accident. We were up to 44 kids one year at North Union School, all 8 grades and one teacher.

The Reynolds family lived just across the road from our house. They had 8 daughters. I remember Juanita and Rose Marie as being two of them. They were wonderful neighbors. Bill pumped and maintained several of the wells in the area and was a wonderful help to Dad.

The Johnson estate, the 3 eighties of flat land, had several oil wells and at least 2 gas wells. One of the gas-producing wells enabled our grandparents to retire when Grandpa was about 60. They spent their winters in Texas and summers in Kansas for many years. They had purchased an eighty of unbroken land in Texas around World War I.

The wells were nearly all Kansas City line formation wells and drilled to approximately 2300 feet. A few were drilled deeper to other formations but produced a lower grade of crude oil. At that time, they drilled 4 wells to 40 acres, evenly spacing helped. Most oil wells produced some gas, and this produced fuel for the gas engines used in pumping the wells. Access roads to the wells were arranged in north-south or east-west directions and were another hindrance to farming. Also, one engine often pumped 2 wells with a pump rod in between.

Many farmers were able to bring the gas from the wells to their homes and had free heating fuel and gas-lighting.

There was lots of “wildcatting” and many “dry holes.” A typical setup would be a road to the site, a slush pond to handle sludge from the drilling operation, a wood derrick possibly fifty-foot tall to handle the cable, bits, and bailers, and install casing in the wells, an engine house for gas or oil field engines, and a beltway or rod way house between the engine room and the drilling rig to operate the tools.

Drilling is really a misnomer as the early rigs used the drop bit method to produce the hole. They were called cable tools.

Dad, Herb Long, and Grandpa Johnson owned a cable rig and drilled two wells, one near Bushton, Kansas and one near Hoisington. The Bushton site produced a good well, as much as 800 barrels per day if allowed to produce at full capacity. In order not to have an oil surplus, wells were prorated down, big wells sometimes to 1/10 of full production. The Hoisington well appeared to be an even better prospect, maybe up to a 1000 barrels per day, but after developing, acidizing salt water came in and ruined the well. That ended the oil business for Dad and Grandpa. They lost the Bushton lease, the cable rig, and it left them with almost thirty thousand dollars in debt. Dad assumed responsibility for this and offered to give up his share of the land inheritance. His brothers and sisters did not accept this and later made him an equal heir. Needless to say, it caused our family some difficult years along with the depression and drought years of the thirties. Grandpa was financially able to shrug it off because of income from wells on his land.

 

100 Years

 My dad, Earl Milan Johnson, was born on October 23, 1921. For his hundredth year, I'm publishing some writing of his that I found a few years after he died. Here is the next installment.

High School Education

By Earl Johnson

Earl Johnson, high school

 I started High School in McPherson, Kansas, in August of 1936 and graduated in the spring of 1940. I had my freshman year at Park School on east Euclid Street and my sophomore year at Wickersham on west Kansas street. During my junior year, we moved to a new high school building in east McPherson where we graduated. 

There were 185 kids in our senior class. Several died during WWII which was going on in Europe, and America became involved on December 7, 1941. 

I did well in High School and made the honor roll by my junior year. I give great credit to friends like Paul Anderson and Carl Casey.  An interesting sidelight is that I met Carl Casey just by chance in Times Square in New York City about 1944. I was in Merchant Marine training in Brooklyn (Sheepshead Bay) and he was in the Navy, I believe.  

My favorite subjects were shop courses, woodworking, printing, bookkeeping, biology, civics, and unfortunately, I took only the required math. I regretted this later after I got into college and studied civil engineering. I was taking high school math along with all of the college math that is so important to an engineer. 

Earl pretending to play guitar in late 1930s.

We drove to school each day, 10 and a half miles each way, and shared rides with others, including, the Clarks. We all had Model A Fords to drive until my last year or so, when my Uncle Emil while using the Model A during the summer ran it low on oil and decided to fill it with crude oil from the oil field slush pond. Then we drove the 1934 Hudson, a large car that was worthless on mud roads. 

The Clarks, who were Republicans, and the Johnsons, who were Democrats, used to get into some pretty hot arguments to and from school.

For my freshman year, I rode with Roy Johnson. His father had never driven a car but rode with us one day. Roy took the Rolander corner a little fast that day. His dad told him in his beautiful Swedish accent, “Roy, you should never drive twenty-five miles per hour around the corner.” 

One day we were driven home by the “oil well pumper” father of one of our friends, who was drunk.  He sped down Old 81 Highway in his new 38 Ford at 65 miles per hour in second gear.  We never rode with him again. 

I suppose my favorite teacher would have to be Leonard B. Crumpacker, but I liked them all. He taught woodworking and printing and had me working whenever I could get out of study hall. W.R. Frazier was Principal, and R.W. Potwin was Superintendent of Schools. I really appreciated my English teacher, Edith I. Haight. She was strict, but a quality teacher and still remembered my first name years later after I was out of the service. Edith I. Haight’s name was changed to “I Haight Edith”, mostly as a joke, but she could be a strict teacher if we weren’t doing our best. What great teachers we had and great kids, too. I was particularly good at subjects that required the use of my hands or required memory work. 

I was still shy with girls and although I admired them, I would walk across the street to miss them. The only time they liked me was when I could help them with their studies. I remember one time when we were to pick up a neighbor girl, Phyllis Donham, and take her home. She was one of the most popular girls in our class. Don was driving the Model A. I got out of the car and flipped the seat so she could get into the back. Phyllis flipped the seat upright and sat between us. What a shock that was and with the prettiest girl in the class.  I don’t remember even going to the senior prom. 

It was the Depression along with the Dust Bowl and drought. Our parents were so hard up that we couldn’t take part in extracurricular activities, such as music and sports. Dad told us he could get us to school and back but couldn’t afford driving or to pay for games or music. We had morning chores before school and evening chores when we got home.  Because of this, I have never been much interested in football or basketball.

 

Things My Mother Never Told Me

Things My Mother Never Told Me

 

Old memories are funny. They tie themselves with long threads to a sound or smell or image, and occasionally they are pulled into awareness, swirling into view, tugged forward by one of our senses. I seem to have more childhood memories than most people I know. I could talk months before I could walk, and I’ve always supposed it was the early language that allowed for so many early recollections. Since I was very young, I’ve carried a few scenes around in my mind that seemed familiar and yet unrelated to the rest of my life.

 

One of these memories is attached to 1958 and the short time we lived in Lamar, Colorado. I was almost four. In my memory, I can see a diner with a large wooden screen door, covered in bright metal advertising. The door is so large I can hardly reach the worn, metal handle. I am too small to ever pull it open on my own. The metal spring squeals as my dad opens the door, and it closes behind us with a sharp clap of wood on wood. Overhead, a wooden fan, with long blades, cuts through the summer heat and blows my curls around. Ahead, I see a circular stool as tall as I am. Its seat is upholstered in green and white vinyl, with shiny metal trim along the rim. It’s attached to a tall metal pole, bolted to the floor. It sits in a row of identical stools in front of a long, wooden bar. My dad lifts me onto that stool, and I sit carefully as the seat swivels and twists left and right with my movement. The bar is tall, and I rest my arms on it as best I can. On the other side of the bar is a smiling man with a big laugh and a gentle, teasing manner.  He talks to my parents and to me, leaning across the wide bar to hear my answers to his questions. Behind me, I hear the big screen door squeal and slam as people enter and exit throughout our visit; each of them greeting the friendly man behind the counter. It’s a very happy memory, surrounded in love, and yet, totally unrelated to anything else I know in my life.

 

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For as long as I can remember, I have always had three grandparents. My dad’s parents, Ida and Arthur Johnson, and my mom’s mom, Frances Dibbens. I spent a lot of time with all three and have many wonderful childhood memories of them. You would think I would have wondered why there were only three, but I don’t recall questioning it. 

 

My single memory of my second grandpa was the day he died, in 1963. I don’t think I related the event to him as a grandpa at the time. The phone on the desk in the dining room is ringing. That isn’t anything new. My mom is close to her family and has many friends, so our phone rings often. Mom appears in the kitchen door, reaches over the desk in the dining room, and lifts the receiver. The memory of that phone call is tied to a moment seconds after she says, “hello.” In an instant, that call is set apart from all others, and a thread is tied that will forever connect the memory in my mind. First, there is silence, and then a quiet sob. If you’ve ever uttered a sob or had your voice crack around children, you know how quickly they home in on it. As Mom speaks softly into the receiver, quiet sobs periodically interrupting her words, my two little sisters and I are drawn to her like magnets. She sits at the desk with the receiver to her ear, tears filling her eyes.

I don’t think any of us had ever heard her cry. Her tears continue as she says goodbye and sets the receiver back on the cradle. As the oldest child and the worrier of the family, I have questions. “Why are you crying, Mommy?  Is everything ok?”

Mom looks at my youngest sister, Laurie, whom she has pulled onto her lap sometime during the call, and then at Kris and me. She wipes her eyes with a tissue, pulled from the box on the desk, and simply says, “My Daddy died today.”

That memory is the only one I have concerning my “other” grandpa. I don’t remember wondering why we didn’t know her daddy. I don’t remember whether she went to the funeral. It would have required a day’s worth of travel each way because of the distance.

By grade school, I understood that my grandmother was divorced. She was a single unit in my eyes, and I never thought to connect her with “Mom’s daddy who died.” She lived in a house across the highway from her restaurant, “Dibben’s Drive Inn,” on the outskirts of Garden City, Kansas. She was independent, resourceful, and a manager of fry cooks and curb hops. She drove around town in a green and white, air-conditioned Buick, turning the big knob on the steering wheel as we eased around the corners on the way to the bank or grocery store. Everyone seemed to know her, and she had a cheerful word for each person she met, punctuated by laughter. To the east of her two-story house sat a small mobile home; the home of her brother-in-law, Jarman, and his wife, Pearl. Uncle Jerry and Aunt Pearl were a big part of the visits to my grandmother’s house. The laughter and teasing never stopped when they were around. From the descriptions of my grandpa that my mom’s cousins have now given me, I’m pretty sure that my grandpa and his brother, Jerry, were very much alike.

 

As a teen, I remember digging through a storeroom shelf in our basement one day and finding a white cardboard box. It was filled with sympathy cards, dried flowers, and purple ribbons that seemed to have been pulled from a floral spray. I asked Mom about it at that time, and she told me, in the fewest words necessary, that they were from her dad’s funeral. She then placed the box on a higher shelf and said no more.

Was it evidence that Mom attended the funeral or that someone saved these “remembrance items” for her?

 

Grandma moved to Boulder, Colorado, when I was nine. It was further from me but closer to my uncle and five cousins, who needed her help. Eventually, she took a job as a house mother for a large boys’ dorm on the campus of the University of Colorado. We saw her as often as we could, but not as much as when she lived in Kansas. 

 

In my late twenties, I was a young divorced mother myself. I was suffering the aftereffects of shame and a fear of the future. My mom, my daughter, Emily, and I headed to Boulder to visit Grandma that summer. Soon after we arrived, Grandma pulled me into her little apartment’s bedroom, away from my three-year-old daughter and worried mother. She closed the door, and we sat together on her bed. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was strong and would survive. By that time, my grandpa had been gone for nearly 20 years. It didn’t seem appropriate to ask more questions. I was still wallowing in humiliation and guilt, fully focused on my situation. What I remember feeling was her strength and determination as her arms wrapped around me and she said those words, “You are complete the way you are. You don’t need someone else to make you happy.” I never doubted those words, born of the experience of the strong, joyful woman I called Grandma.

That happened several years before I caught the genealogy bug and decades before I stood at Grandma’s grave. The boxes and bags of her letters, pictures, papers, and artifacts found their way into my house, now operating as the “family history library.” It was then that I discovered the brittle pieces of a faded wedding certificate, ripped in half, yet both pieces still safely stored away with the rest of her life's artifacts.

As I processed this puzzle as an adult, the memory of the phone call swirled through my mind, and I experienced it, this time, as one of a granddaughter hearing of her grandfather’s death.

 

The holes in the puzzle saddened me as I worked to fit the pieces of a broken family together;
a romance,
a marriage,
a happy start with two children,
fond memories voiced by nieces and nephews of their Aunt Frances and Uncle Forest,
stories of Grandpa’s big keg parties held at their farm in south central Kansas,
arguments bad enough for family intervention,
love and laughter,
family pictures,
a 200-mile move to Garden City,
a family business,
thirty years of marriage,
a betrayal,
broken trust,
a separation,
a divorce the year I was born,
a marriage certificate ripped in two,
carefully kept secrets,
and a collapse in communication between Grandpa, his extended family, and his children.

 

Mom’s wounds were covered in perpetual bandages of silence. 

 

Mom has been gone since 2004. She is the one who got me interested in genealogy, and we often spoke about our family tree. I don’t remember anyone asking me not to talk about my grandpa. It seems so odd now that I wouldn’t have asked her something. Was there an unspoken rule? Did it just feel so normal that I ignored the silence? Was she just waiting for me to ask, ready with a prepared speech that she never got to give? I’ll never know. She was so close to her family; both her mom’s and dad’s families. I asked her questions about everyone in the family, except one person: her dad, my Grandpa Dibbens.

 

The detached memory of the man across the counter in Lamar swirled through my mind for nearly sixty years before I ever thought to describe it to anyone. By that time, my dad was the only one left who could fill in the blanks and link the memory to my life. When I told him what I recalled during a visit a few weeks before his death, he nodded and said, “That was your Grandpa Dibbens. He had a diner in Lamar at the time I was transferred with the company, and we moved there for a few months.”

 

As I sat processing this information, I realized how full of God’s blessing and healing His plan had been. How fortunate was my dad’s transfer! Mom had to have been hurting from the abandonment by her father. No one knew that Grandpa would be dead within five years. Dad was transferred to the same state and town in which Mom’s estranged father was living. We were there for several months, and Mom had a chance to reconcile with her dad, healing some of the damage caused by the trauma in her childhood. She had the chance to forgive, and he had the chance to be forgiven.

 

As for this granddaughter? I have the gift of a lovely memory of a grandpa I thought I’d never known. 

 

I don’t know why Mom stayed silent about her childhood and her dad. He remained in all the family pictures but not in the family stories. Possibly, it still hurt to talk about it, or more probably, she had determined early on to move past it and make our childhood different from hers. From all I’ve learned and all I know, she succeeded at that! She was her mother’s daughter, after all! My sisters and I grew up sheltered from all the vices that marred her own childhood, and all the love and goodness she could gather.

 

Tribute: Helen Louise Acker Edwards 1921-2016

Helen has been a part of my life since 1986.

She was the best Mother-in-Law I could EVER dream to ask for and also a wonderful grandmother and great grandmother to my children and grandchildren. 

I loved her!

I loved how she and Harry accepted 5 year-old Emily and I into their hearts when I met and later married their son, Vince. Emily immediately became a beloved granddaughter; something she cherishes to this day. 

 
I loved Helen's creativity – She was always making something from doll clothes, to rag rugs, to stuffed animals, to small paintings of things she enjoyed.

I loved her joyfulness – She always had a ready laugh.

I loved her mischievousness (especially when paired with husband, Harry!) – Ask the kids how many ways they unwrapped their Christmas money over the years!

I loved her resourcefulness – Once they were stranded for a week during an ice storm without electricity. (Click on ice storm for that story!) Harry had to return to his non-motorized wheelchair which was a true hardship on the couple in their 80’s. I wanted to find a way to rescue them and find a place for them to stay for a few days but they took it all in stride. They spent their days playing cards next to the fireplace, covered in blankets for extra warmth, as the temperature inside their house plummeted into the 40’s. They ate dinner every night that week cooked in a coffee can she placed in the coals of the fire!
 

I loved her fun loving take on life. – When they took Brittany for her hospital visit once, the giant stuffed lion had to come along! It got its own wheelchair ride; following Brittany up to the children’s ward!

Her ways were something I enjoyed immensely!

When I lost my own mother, she stepped in to help fill in a little of the void left in my life.

When my husband, their only son died, they made sure I knew I would always be part of their family.

A few years later we found ourselves in the same club; the “Widow’s Club.” We laughed, cried, and shared. We shared our dreams, worries and secret thoughts surrounding the
experience.

I will truly miss having her around but I know we'll laugh together again someday.