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.

 ***

 My Grandparents, Ida Nelson and Arthur Johnson, were married on November 30, 1918. The following was a speech, written and delivered for his parents, by their son and my uncle, Don Johnson, at the program of their 50th-anniversary open house celebration. It was held in November 1968 at the New Gottland Covenant Church near McPherson, Kansas.

November 1918

My Parents 50th Anniversary Speech

Arthur and Ida Johnson

By Donald J Johnson

 Arthur, probably realizing that the approaching winter would be hard and cold, decided that it would be nice to have a wife. They had met in Kansas City, Missouri, but Dad was now back on the farm in Kansas. He left Galva by train on November 28, 1918, and headed for Osage City, Kansas, where Mother’s family resided. After a day or two of deliberation, Ida was convinced that they should get married in Topeka, Kansas. They made that journey to Topeka and were married on November 30, 1918.

1958 On their farm near New Gottland

 Following the wedding, they continued on to Kansas City, Missouri, for the night, and then on to Excelsior Springs, Missouri for a few days, where Ida toured the city, and Arthur remained in their room recuperating from the flu. The happy newlyweds returned to Galva as the blizzard of 1918 was raging, and they continued their honeymoon at the Galva Hotel.

 Their carriage chauffeured by Arthur’s brother Reuben, and his cousin Joe Johnson, got lost in the blizzard. A few days later, Teddy Nordstrom, a friend of Dad’s, arrived by team and wagon to escort them to their new home. 

1968

 
Six children were born to this union: Helen Margaret, Earl, Donald, and Helen Lucille were the children of their first family, and LaDonna and LeRay were children of their ‘second family.’ LaDonna and LeRay were so much younger that the folks felt as if they had two families. 

 This is the Thanksgiving season, and we would like to thank the folks and God for the privilege of being raised in a home where much love was shown. Even though we realize that the times must have been difficult, and money was frequently a problem, they provided us with interesting and memorable experiences.

1978

 Journeys to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins at Osage City and Kansas City, in our Model T Ford touring car were always looked forward to and enjoyed. The trip to the Rio Grande Valley to visit grandparents. To Padre Island where the pigs ate our dinner, and on to the gulf of Old Mexico, where I fell out of that old Ford into a mud puddle will always be remembered. 

 Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the discipline that was given to us while we were kids, and I was probably the hardest one to handle. I believe that I know more about discipline than the others, as I seemed to get in the most trouble. They taught us to know right from wrong by various methods, such as Dad wielding the razor strap, or mother washing our mouths out with soap and water, or maybe spending the evening in a dark room.

 

1985

We also learned that we had better tell the truth or else suffer the consequences. That learning must have prompted me to report to Dad, and he nearly fell from the seat of his horse-drawn mower with laughter when I told him that I threw the hairbrush at Earl and broke the cupboard window, but it really wasn’t my fault because Earl ducked. 

 Earl never got in trouble that I remember. I guess he never did anything wrong, or else he was more able to avoid detection after he committed a misdeed.

 LaDonna and LeRay were brought up differently. They could do things that were worse than anything that we older ones ever thought of doing, and they didn’t have to suffer the consequences than we did.

Happy Anniversary!

 

Arthur, Ida, Helen, Earl, Don,
LeRay, and LaDonna
About 1940

 

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 second  installment.

Grade School Education  

by Earl Johnson

(written sometime in the 1990s) 

 I started grade school in September of 1926 at North Union School which was about ¾ miles east, one mile south, and a quarter-mile east of the Gustafson place where we lived. Dad and his brothers and sisters, also my brothers and sisters all attended grade

school at that location in a small building which was replaced by a larger approximately 40x40 foot building. The building had only 1 classroom, a library, boys and girls cloakrooms and a full basement. Toilet facilities were outside. 

 My first years in school were very difficult for me because I was a lefthander.  Educators at that time believed that being left-handed was a disability and thought to change it. Viola Engstrom was my teacher and used to whack my left hand with a ruler each time she caught me using it. This caused me not only pain but also fear and most likely set me back in the learning process. I would claim illness and play hookey. I should add at this time that Ms. Engstrom was a lovely and beautiful young woman and was only carrying out her job as a teacher.  She was a local girl and grew up on the next quarter east of the school.

This building was later made into a home and still stands in good condition.

 

 

 

I do feel that it slowed my learning ability and concentration at least during the first few years and hurt my ability to throw a ball, etc. I was able to use either hand for most things except writing which helped me in other ways.  

 Robert Benson, Rachel Clark, and John Dee Holm started first grade with me. John moved after two or three years to North Diamond District and others came into the class, mainly children of oil field workers who moved to the area. Among those were Alfred Hollenback, Mary Byerly, Melvin McCabe, and Edith Birge. 

 Can you imagine 44 kids, one classroom, one teacher and all 8 grades? This was for much of my grade school years.  The older kids helped the younger ones and the younger ones heard the older ones during their recitations at the front of the room or at the chalkboard.

 The three teachers during my years at North Union were Viola Engstrom, Mary Alice Crist, and Pauline Cooprider.  I don’t believe any of them had much more than a high school education, perhaps summer school but they were excellent teachers.

 Mary Alice Crist was a strict disciplinarian and some of us felt the sting of the rubber hose that was kept in the lower right-hand drawer of her desk.  I remember John Dee Holm getting two whippings in one day, one for the crime committed and another for taking out across the field for home.  

 Mary Alice Crist was much appreciated for her teaching ability and all of us were in debt to her.  She was an “old maid”, drove a Model T Ford Coupe, and always carried a 22-Rifle in the back window of her car. She later married Newt Robinson, a fairly well-to-do-widower.  

 Pauline Cooprider was my teacher for seventh and eighth grade.  She was also a good teacher and we learned much from her.  At that time, however, we were tested in the seventh and eighth grade with exams prepared by the county superintendent of schools and staff. We studied one curriculum which was different from the one we were tested on and only two, Robert Benson and Rachel Clark, passed to eighth grade. They failed in only one subject and the other five of us failed in two and had to take the seventh grade over.  No fault on the teacher or us because other schools in the county had the same problem. It may have been the best thing that ever happened to us because when we started high school (ninth grade) we were well ahead of the town kids and by the end of my sophomore year I was on the honor roll.  Pauline Cooprider later married Leonard Lundberg and spent most of the rest of their lives in McPherson.

 We usually walked to school when it was nice either across the field or around the roads and had many good times with others as we walked. In bad weather, we shared with neighbors driving by car, by horse and wagon, and sometimes by horse and sled. Sometimes in the winter, the township roads might be blocked for a month from snowdrifts. The only way out would be across the field. Joe Clark lived just half a mile west of us and their older children Maurice and Lucille, although in New Gottland District, came to North Union for a few years because it was closer.  We shared rides with them and for a while with the Bill “Steamboat” Johnson family.  Otherwise, we were at the end of the line. Dad came and met us one night and caught Don and me wading in the grader ditch trying to catch tadpoles. It was fairly cold and we were wet. Dad left us as punishment for our sin and took all of the other kids home. 

 I met John Dee Holm in about 1996 at a Memorial Day festivity. It was the first time to see him in over 65 years. He told me he had wanted to apologize to me for all of that time because he had chased me, thrown a small piece of iron, and hit me in the head, causing bleeding out. I don’t remember it but it could be another reason why I was never too bright. 

 Some of the boys used to challenge each other to suck raw eggs and keep it down without vomiting. What a challenge! 

 Our teachers usually gave us craft time and allowed us to make crafts for gifts. Some of the painted wood dogs, cats, and rabbits were made into bookends or doorstops, etc, and are still around. I accidentally dipped my red paintbrush into the can of white paint. Ms. Crist liked me and I respected her but wasn’t real popular with her for a few days. 

Dad, Arthur Johnson 1915

 We played lots of games at recess and during the noon hour. The last day of school each year was very special. People brought a potluck lunch at noon. Children would put on a program for parents and neighbors and it usually became a community gathering. In the afternoon my Dad, a former pitcher for the Kansas City Monarchs would organize a ball game and the young men of the community would take part. Dad would pitch until he finally threw “his arm away”. I was always proud of Dad but sure afraid that he was somewhat disappointed in his boys because we didn’t have his playing ability. He certainly tried to teach us. 

 I did not have a girlfriend in grade school or high school for that matter. Don was the lover boy of the family. 

 About 1998, we had a reunion for members of the North Union School and many people were present including Carl Chinburg, who was 100 years old, and my Uncle Reuben, who was almost 95. Many people were present.

 Robert Benson and his father were killed in a car-train accident about 1935 before starting high school and Alfred Hollenback lost his life in an oil field accident the following year. I will never forget Robert’s aunt at the funeral singing “We Shall Meet at the River”. This was a great shock to both Don and me and we appreciated the consoling our parents gave us.

 The school was closed and children were bussed to McPherson for school. 

 School and church were the center of nearly all activities I wish the children of today could experience the same

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.

Family by Earl Johnson 

Earl Johnson

(written sometime in the 1990s) 

I was born in Osage City, Kansas, on October 23, 1921, at my grandparents’ home in Osage City, Kansas. My parents were Arthur T. Johnson and Ida (Nelson) Johnson of rural McPherson County in Delmore Township. My grandparents were John A. and Ida Johnson, and James and Jenny Nelson. All four grandparents were born in Sweden and immigrated to America. Two of my great grandfathers also lived in Kansas. They were Jonas Johnson and Håkan Mårtinsson and they are buried in Kansas. 

 New Gottland, in McPherson County, is a Swedish community and was settled by Swedes in the 1800s. Grandpa Johnson came to Red Wing, Minnesota in 1869 from Sweden and then homesteaded in McPherson County, Kansas. We still have the original homestead papers signed by President Benjamin Harrison in 1892. 

 Jonas Johnson settled on the next quarter north of John and had three daughters and two sons.  Grandpa Johnson married the daughter of his neighbor, Ida, when she was 17 and he was 36 years old. John and Ida Johnson raised 5 sons and 2 daughters on the homestead. They were Emil, Arthur (my father), Martin, Albin, Mabel, Edith, and Reuben. 

 They also had another son, Arthur, who was the first born and was killed when he fell off a wagon and broke his neck at the age of five. Emil never married and was buried in New Gottland Cemetery. Albin had two daughters, Faith and Hope, and was an Adventist Preacher in the backwoods of Tennessee. Martin had one daughter and lived in Texas. Mabel married Charles Lindblade and lived on the Johnson homeplace. They had three children: Betty, Roger, and Wendell. Edith never married and worked for years at the Adventist Hospital in Tennessee. Reuben married Marge while living in Chicago and later moved to a farm near Arkadelphia, Arkansas. They lived there until retirement. Marge is buried in a cemetery near Arkadelphia. 

 Grandpa Johnson later bought out another homestead just east of the original land. This was very hilly ground and mostly in pasture. He also purchased another quarter and also an 80 on good flat land. At one time he had a full section. 

 The home they lived in started out as a dugout, then a basement, and later a framed two-story home over the basement. It was an interesting house with a porch around three sides and also had a bathroom with a tub and sink. Water was pumped from a cistern underneath the bathroom. The toilet was outdoors. The house still stands but is uninhabitable and in terrible condition. The barn and all the outbuildings are long gone. The windmill tower and two concrete water tanks are still there.  

 They farmed with horses and oxen and raised hogs and cattle. They were fortunate to have 5 sons to work the farm. We have some interesting papers on what grandpa had to put up in collateral in order to buy the land and other things. 

 When grandpa was nearing 60 he was unable to pay anything on the principal for the flat land. He asked the bank to take the land back but the bank didn’t want it. They agreed to excuse the interest and let him try again. In just a few years Grandpa struck oil on his land and he was able to pay off all his debt and retire. Grandpa and Grandma took a trip to the Rio Grande valley in Texas and they bought land and built a house there. They spent their winters in Texas and their summers in Kansas until Grandpa died at 92 years. Grandma died in 1952 at the age of 93. They are buried in McAllen, Texas. 

 All the Johnsons in the McPherson County area had nicknames because there were so many. Dad had the name “Swearin’ Johnson” and Grandpa Johnson was “By Gosh Johnson”. 

 Grandpa Johnson smoked a pipe most of his life. He quit after being bitten by a black widow spider and he also received his second eyesight and did not use his glasses for the remainder of his life. Grandpa was a strong Democrat among many Republicans in Kansas. Someone once asked him in my presence, “Are you as good a Democrat as you always were?” He said, “When I’m in Kansas I’m a Democrat. When in Texas I’m a Republican.” He loved to argue. 

 Grandpa, in his older years, loved to walk and could walk 10 miles a day. If I tried to pick him up when meeting him on the road he would say, “Go on, go on.” When he did ride with me and I took him to town, he would point to 60mph and say, “Put it up there.” He would usually give me a dollar when I took him to town, a big sum in the 1930s. LaDonna, LeRay, Don and I, and our parents visited Grandma (in Texas) in 1947. 

 My mother's parents, James and Jenny Nelson, came to Kansas and settled around the coal mines of Osage City. Grandpa worked in the coal mines and also farmed. At one time Grandpa along with their only son, Emil, operated their own coal mine. Emil was injured in a fall which left him crippled for the rest of his life. 

 They had 6 daughters and one son. They were Anna, Ida (my mother), Emma, Edna, Hilda, Helen, and Emil. Grandpa and Grandma were married in Osage City, Kansas in 1889. They owned a home northeast of Osage City in an area called Dogtown. They also had an 80 which they farmed south and east of the home place. Grandpa had at least one brother and one sister that came to America. John Nelson, and sister Elna Nelson, who married Hans Christianson. Elna was the mother of Melia Johnson who married Edwin Johnson of Osage City. Elna had one grandson, Wilbur, who moved with his family to Topeka. 

 Grandma Nelson had her father and at least one brother and one sister who came to America. Håkan Mårtinsson was her father and had been a tailor in Sweden. Nils Hawkinson, her brother, farmed near Lindsborg, Kansas, and had 6 sons and one daughter. They had a nice bottomland farm on the Smoky Hill River. We visited them often and knew them all. Grandma’s sister Betty went to California, and I know very little about her and her family except that she enjoyed dogs and fed them at her table and mourned them after they went to the dog cemetery. 

 Grandma Jenny and her sister were maids in a castle in southern Sweden. Family stories lend that it was a summer palace. Their father, Håkan Mårtinsson was a tailor and his wife Ingar Nilsdotter assisted him. She was an excellent tailor herself. 

 Grandpa Nelson lived to be 92 and died in Kansas City. He is buried in Osage City. Grandma died at age 66 from diabetes and is also buried in Osage City. Their daughter Hilda died in her early 20s from an illness. 

 Grandma kept a beautiful yard and many flowers and was an excellent seamstress. I attended her funeral. Mother’s sister, Helen, was married to a man who was a spiritualist. As Grandma lay in the living room, he warned everyone to keep the doors and windows closed and to keep the cats out of the house. 

 Grandpa Nelson spent his later years between my parents’ home in Kansas and daughter Edna’s home in Kansas City. He was a handsome old man with heavy white hair. Grandpa always had a heavy Swedish brogue and often got his words turned around. Someone asked him to paint his house and he said, “Alright, I come yesterday.” He liked to drink a bit in his younger life, and we heard some funny stories from Mother about that. 

 We would go to Osage City once or twice a year and always enjoyed going to Uncle Emil’s candy store which was next to the movie theater. Uncle Emil later became Clerk of the City of Osage.

Sentimental Sunday - Trip to the Farm Site of Arthur T. Johnson

Sunscreen, long pants, old shoes, long socks, camera..., Ready to go!
That's right! It's summer, a time to climb over barbed-wire fences and explore the old homesteads and farms! 

Our first stop of the day was my paternal grandparents' barn, just to the northwest of McPherson, Kansas - all that's left of the farm that I spent much of my childhood exploring.


My cousin and I prepared for hiking through freshly cut wheat fields. After a discussion about which path had the least poison ivy, we stepped through the Osage Orange trees that form the hedge around the land.


The barn looks south from a grove of trees that have grown up around it. I walked to about where the old farmhouse would have stood to take the shot. From there, I could see that the roof is in good condition with no signs of caving in.

I wonder how old the red paint on the siding is. I was hoping there would be a little piece of the barn laying around for me to take with me, but it's still very much intact. 

What I remember most about this barn is the smell of oats wafting through from the small hatches with wooden latches (still in place).

As we stood in the doorway, there was a sudden noise from above, and out swooped a large barn owl - white with gray spots - from the door of the loft. It flew a few inches above our heads, close enough to feel the breeze from its large wings, and out the door of the barn. What a nice surprise!




I'm thankful that this barn is still standing. My sisters, cousins and I spent many hours playing in it as children (1960's) and our parents (1930's), most likely, before us.