Helen Johnson Hornberger (1925-2024) By Shari Edwards

 

Helen Johnson Hornberger was my aunt. She usually introduced me to her friends as "the oldest daughter of her oldest brother." I've known her all my life, but after I retired, I had the opportunity to spend quality time with her weekly. As the family historian, I might have had a few selfish motives, such as gleaning every story and fact I could about her and the rest of our family. Her stories and her answers to my many questions, interwoven with bits of her life, captivated me over lunch, coffee, or an old photo album.

 

Helen was born in a Model T Ford in the parking lot of the McPherson hospital. Every great person needs a great beginning!

 

She told me about the time the Christmas tree caught fire, riding her bike down the row of asparagus to keep it from growing (she didn’t realize my dad just used scissors), about the many beautiful fruit trees on their farm that died during the Dust Bowl and drought years, and the snake she found while gathering eggs that caused her to have a lasting fear and got her out of that chore for good!

 

As a girl, she began attending the New Gottland Covenant Church with a friend, eventually leading her two older brothers and then the rest of the family to the church. She loved music of all kinds. We enjoyed singing together during many music programs at Regent Park. Last fall, Aunt Helen began singing the hymn, “I Need Thee Every Hour,” that she thought she’d learned as a girl. When she was restless, I’d hear her singing parts of the line, “Bless me now my Savior, I come to Thee.” Sometimes trailing off to “Bless me, help me.”

 

Although Helen was an excellent student, when she started high school in McPherson, she told me that as a farm girl, she never felt quite as good as the city girls. But after graduation, she moved to Wichita, landed a factory job as a parts clerk at Beech Aircraft Co., and within a few short years, became Olive Ann Beech's personal secretary. I'm sure she surprised herself many times! (I wish you could have heard her dramatize her funniest conversations with Mrs. Beech! I can still hear her say, “Miss Johnson!”)

 

As an artist, she could look at a tin can and see a flower. She developed methods for
creating realistic metal flowers that could fool a botanist from a few feet away. When I asked her how it all began, she shrugged and said, "It was hot one summer, and I wanted something to work on in the cool basement." You’d never guess that she had taught hundreds of people her techniques, written a book about it, had arrangements at the Smithsonian and the Sedgwick County Historical Museum! She taught several of her nieces and nephews the basics of making metal flowers, in the basement of the Hillcrest. Sadly, what looked effortless when she demonstrated was anything but! Nevertheless, we all enjoyed the time together.

 

Sometimes, I would bring her pages from the novel I was writing about her grandpa and the Johnson family. She became a literary critic as she read, looking up occasionally with a comment, "It might have happened that way," or "Dad would have used stronger language than that!" I have many more memories to write about later.

 

This weekend, I made a list of the values that seemed to be the very essence of my aunt: generosity, creativity, lifelong learning, humor, perseverance and grit, humility, and encouragement.

 

I saved a voicemail message she left me once after I brought her a chapter of my book. Even though I’m not good at hearing things like “you have a real imagination for dialogue” and “it was wonderful,” about my own writing, because I see the faults first, it was a great encouragement to keep writing. 

 

Aunt Helen wasn't as comfortable receiving compliments as she was giving them. When met with admiration in the last few years, she would battle her self-consciousness with humor and a little sarcasm, using a favorite catchphrase: "Well, ain't I the one?" And to that, I would say, "Well, yes, you are!"

Patricia Ann (Martinson) Johnson - Aunt Patty

 Aunt Patty, my Uncle LeRay's wife, died earlier this month. 

 I am so grateful Brittany and I were able to stop in McPherson to visit Aunt Patty about 3 weeks before she died. She was in great spirits that day and we talked for quite a while. 

I'll miss her phone calls and how she relentlessly pursued answers to my questions about our family history as I wrote my book.

Pastor Daniel Perry, New Gottland Covenant Church in McPherson County, Kansas officiated and gave the best message at her funeral. The day was memorable in that the sanctuary was standing room only and a huge thunderstorm came over during the service and only her immediate family braved the 60 mph winds and rain at the New Gottland Lutheran Cemetery. They came back with a few broken umbrellas and wet clothes but, their positive attitudes were intact, just like Aunt Patty would have liked.

Before I left the church, I asked the pastor if he'd send me the message. 

 

I'll let his own wonderful words tell you about Aunt Patty.

 ***

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.

 

Ida Matilda Johnson - 52 Ancestors

Ida Mathilda Jonsdotter was born 21 October 1865 in Brånhorvan, Vena, Kalmar län, Sweden. She left Sweden with her family when she was 5 years old. Her family homesteaded on land northeast of McPherson, Kansas.  


She grew up on the farm and when she was 16, married the next door neighbor, Johan August Johannesson on 1 Sept 1882 in McPherson. Because of a shortage of marriageable women in the area, John waited until Ida was old enough to marry and married her. Their American names were Ida M. and John A. Johnson. Ida moved next door and so, came to live in the house that she had always been able to see from the window in her parents’ home.

They had 9 sons and 2 daughters. All but the first 2 sons survived and helped run the farm.

Arthur and John (both died as children)
Emil
Arthur (my grandpa)
Albin
Martin
Mabel
Edith
Reuben

By 1920, they had left the running of the farm to their son, Arthur and his wife, Ida, and moved to the Rio Grande Valley in the southern tip of Texas. They built a vegetable and fruit farm near Alamo, Texas.  Several of their children helped them with both of the farms.

After John died in 1940, Ida and Edith stayed in Texas; moving to the house at the right. This is the last house they lived in. Ida died 17 August 1952 in Alamo, Hidalgo, Texas.