JOSEPH LEWIS JOHNSON

In 1989, when my father was 79 years old, he signed up for a rafting trip down the Colorado River. It went through the Grand Canyon so, as you can imagine, it was quite spectacular. He wanted to take one of his children with him, but Tom and Kate had commitments, so I was the lucky one to go. The rafts were very large, carrying 18 people, however provided no seating. We had to make do by sitting on the edge of the pontoon or bracing ourselves against piles of supplies. It was uncomfortable and passengers were constantly searching for a good spot to sit. Near the end of the trip we were talking about where our favorite places were on the raft, when one woman said, “My favorite place is sitting next to Joe Johnson because Joe has the most interesting stories to tell.” All my life I had heard dad tell stories about his life experiences, and I found them interesting, even fascinating, but assumed, incorrectly, that all fathers had interesting stories to tell. It was at that moment, late in dad’s life, that I began to appreciate his stories, and paying close attention when he told them.

PART I: CHAPPELL, NEBRASKA

My father was born on September 8, 1910, in the family home in Chappell, Nebraska. The closest city was Denver, Colorado, which was about a two-day drive away by car. Chappell is located on the high plains of western Nebraska, about five miles from the Colorado state line, at an elevation of 3,700 feet.  The winters are very cold, dry, and windy; the summers, stifling hot. According the U.S. census of 1910, the population was 329. 

When my father was born his grandfather’s ranch was about 800 acres. As he was growing up his father expanded the family holdings to 10 farms, consisting of 4.000-5,000 acres. The family house was right in the middle of town, with the courthouse next door and the public library across the street. Although the nicest house in town, there was no central heat nor indoor plumbing. There was a coal stove in the living room and another in the kitchen for cooking. Later they got an oil stove for the kitchen.

Following are more of dad’s recollections that are contained in his article in the Deuel County History.

One event occurred during my boyhood that caused the name of Chappell to be carried in newspapers all over the United States and probably most of the world. The engine on the funeral train that was carrying he body of President Harding fro San Francisco to Washington threw a tire at Chappell and the train was stopped there for several hours. A number of famous people got out and walked up and down the tracks, but the only one that I can remember is General Pershing. 

My fondest memories of growing up in Chappell are of swimming and fishing in, and skating and duck hunting on the Lodgepole Creek. When I returned in 1978 for the 50th anniversary of my high school graduation, you can imagine how disappointed I was to find that the creek had dried up and was no more.

I finished law school at the University of Nebraska in 1936. It was the depth of the depression and Chappell was in the middle of the dust bowl. There were no jobs so I went home to Chappell, had some letterheads printed and hung out my shingle at my father’s real estate office. No one seemed to need a lawyer so for a year I divided my time between shucking corn on the ranch and jerking sodas at the Ferris Drug Store. During this period only one client showed up and he wanted a deed prepared. I took down the necessary information and told him to come back the next day. I then consulted my father about the fee and it was thought that one dollar would be about right. The next day I delivered the deed and received a silver dollar from my client and that was the total of my first year’s law practice. 

Following is an assortment of stories that I remember my father telling me, or they were included in the oral history tapes that were recorded in the summer of 1986. 

The Jail

The courthouse and jail were located adjacent to grandfather’s house, on the far side of the large lawn. My father used to go over to the jail and talk to the inmates through the barred windows. They were lonely and needed someone to talk to and dad thought they had interesting stories to tell. One frequent inmate was one of two Jewish brothers who lived in Chappell. He had a drinking problem and when he went on one of his benders he was put in the jail to sober up. He was quite intelligent and also an accomplished violinist. He used to play the violin for my father through the jail bars.

Oranges

Oranges were expensive and not easy to come by. Every year dad received one orange, and that was on Christmas day.

The Sleep-over

Dad had a sweet tooth and was somewhat of a spoiled child. One weekend he spent the night at a friend’s house on a ranch. The boy’s mother made pancakes for breakfast and the ranch hands ate with the family. Because dad was the honored guest he was given the bottle of syrup to start it around the table. Dad poured enough syrup on his pancakes until they were actually floating on the plate. This was the normal amount he put on his pancakes at home. When he passed the bottle to the next person he suddenly realized he had used more than half the syrup. Each person put two drops of syrup on their pancakes. Not a word was spoken by anyone during the entire breakfast. The only sound was of the knives and forks working and people chewing and swallowing. As you can imagine, dad was mortified.

The First Car

About 1914 grandfather bought the first car in Chappell. I think it was a Model-T Ford. They took the train from Chappell to Denver where they purchased the car at a dealership. Grandfather did not know how to drive the car, so one of the mechanics at the dealership drove the family from Denver to Chappell. There weren’t any real roads on the prairie so they just headed in a northeasterly direction until they saw a sign that said, Nebraska State Line, and they knew they must be near Chappell. Whenever they came to a barbed-wire fence stretched across the prairie, someone in the car jumped out with a long stick and used it to push the wire high enough for the car could drive under. The mechanic stayed in Chappell to teach grandfather how to drive and service the car. Later the mechanic and grandfather went into business together, opening the first garage in Chappell. By then the first transcontinental highway went right down the main street of Chappell. It was called the Lincoln Highway. It started at Times Square in New York City and ended at Lincoln Park in San Francisco.

The Pony

Grandfather created quite a stir whenever he went out in his new car. Horseless carriages were a novelty and you didn’t see them often out on the prairies of Nebraska. On my father’s seventh birthday, grandfather drove him to a farm near Julesburg and gave him a shetland pony. How to get the pony home? The idea was that dad would ride the pony back and grandfather would follow behind in the car. But Julesburg was about 15 miles from Chappell and after a few miles dad got tired. One of the ranch hands was a monster of a man, so they had him crouch down under the pony and then slowly rise to his feet, lifting the pony onto his shoulders. The car was a convertible, and the top was down, so all he had to do was get into the backseat of the car and let the pony down. It had not dawned on grandfather what a ridiculous scene it would make when they drove into Chappell. As you might have guessed, everyone in town doubled over with laughter when they saw the pony riding in the backseat. One of the local businessmen motioned for grandfather to stop the car. When grandfather pulled over the businessman told him he did not have a horseless carriage anymore because of the horse in the backseat. Trying to appear as nonchalant as possible, grandfather told his friend it was the latest thing. The pony was like a spare tire. If the car broke down, he could always ride the pony. 

KKK

It was about the time of the First World War, as my father remembers, that the Ku Klux Klan rage swept the nation. Dad remembers that several cross-burnings were held in Chappell and men were driving around town at night wearing white bed sheets. He did not know if his father was a member, but doubted it. There were no blacks in Chappell and dad thinks the people were afraid of the Catholic Church.

Critical Illness

One winter my father came down with some kind of lung infection. He had a high fever and was in extreme pain. Every time he coughed he screamed in pain. The family doctor was unable to diagnose what it was and the family contacted a local osteopath. The second doctor was unable to diagnose it either, but told grandfather dad was going to die if he didn’t get expert medical help as soon as possible. They immediately took dad on a stretcher out on the prairie to the Union Pacific line and flagged down the first train to come through. Dad, tied to the stretcher, was put on the train through an open window. When they got to the hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska, dad was diagnosed with a critical case of empyema. To save dad’s life, the doctor made an incision in dad’s back, cutting through one of the ribs in order to drain the fluid from his lung. Over several days time they drained out a gallon of pus. It took several years for dad to fully recover from the illness.

Pasadena

For several years after that, for dad’s health, grandfather drove the family out to Pasadena, California, to spend the winter. That would have been about 1920 or so.

One New Year’s Day grandfather took the family for a drive in their Model T Ford. They came to a field with bleachers on either side, and in the middle of the field a football game was being played. Grandfather drove the Model T up over the curb and parked it behind the goal posts. The family got out and began watching the game. On a field goal kick the ball came right for grandfather. He caught the ball and as a referee came running up, he tossed it to him. The referee blew the whistle at grandfather and shouted at him that he must immediately remove his car from the end zone. Grandfather was befuddled. “Excuse me sir,” he said, “football season normally ends after Thanksgiving. What game is this?” The referee’s face turned bright red and he screamed, “the Rose Bowl!”

The Lost Dog

On one of the trips to California they took the family dog, Teddy, with them. On the way they stopped in Williams, Arizona, and took the train up to see the Grand Canyon, leaving Teddy with the porter at the hotel in Williams. Upon their return from the porter told them Teddy had run away. They spent a few more days in Williams looking for Teddy before they left for California, but could not find the dog. A few weeks later the sheriff in Williams called my grandfather in California to tell him the dog had been found about 60 miles east, walking in the direction of their home in Chappell. The sheriff shipped the dog to them in California.

Taos, New Mexico

On one family vacation grandfather drove the family to Taos, New Mexico. While in Taos the car broke down. There was only one garage in Taos and the mechanic, who was dying of cancer, lived in a room over the garage. He was too ill to get out of bed, so he sent a boy down to the garage with instructions to remove different parts of the engine. While in bed, the mechanic inspected the engine parts one by one until he was able to figure out which part was the problem.

Odd Jobs

Dad did a lot of part-time work when he was growing up, including nights, weekends and during summer vacations. His jobs included harvesting corn, working at the local drugstore, being a counselor at a boys camp and delivering gasoline to the farms near Chappell. He said harvesting corn was very hard, hot work. The corn leaves were sharp and cut up his hands, arms and clothing. To harvest the corn, a horse pulled a wagon slowly through the rows as the boys pulled the ears loose and tossed them in the back of the wagon. Dad was always the slowest one and he would periodically have to stop his horse and make it turn around, go back and start over again.

Hunting and Fishing

My father loved to hunt and fish. They fished either on the Lodgepole Creek or they drove up into the Sandhills and camped and fished there.  They caught perch and bullheads. One summer he went up into the Wyoming Rockies and fished for trout. There were lots of ponds around Chappell in the winter and dad hunted for ducks and pheasants. When he was a small boy grandfather got him a small 410 shotgun. On the first hunting trip a jack rabbit jumped right out in front of dad and the other hunters shouted at him to shoot, but he discovered he was not strong enough to pull the hammer back on the shotgun. On his 16th birthday grandfather got him a 15-gauge Browning automatic shotgun. 

Trains

The Union Pacific line went through Chappell and in the early days the railroad was the lifeblood of the town. Local trains stopped in Chappell, but normally transcontinental passenger trains didn’t stop there. Instead, you had to get off in Julesburg. When grandfather heard that the first Burlington Zephyr coming through Chappell he took the family to the nearby town of Sidney, where they got on, and rode to Julesburg, going through Chappell. Dad remembered Alf Landon’s campaign train coming through Chappell in 1936. Through grandfather’s connections dad was able to get on the train and shake Governor Landon’s hand. One day when dad was about ten, he and some other boys were standing by the tracks, waiting for a freight train to pass. After the last car went by, the boys began to cross the tracks. Dad was the last one and as he was stepping over the rails he just happened to look back and he saw that the train had gone off the tracks. He watched in amazement as about 40 freight cars, one-by-one, slowly summersaulted off the tracks.

High School

My father’s favorite subject in high school was math. He remembers his geometry teacher was not very good at the material. If she got stuck doing a problem, she called on him to come up to the blackboard and finish it for her.

The Basketball Game

I have a clear memory of dad telling me about a basketball game in high school in which he was the hero. I thought dad was a stickler for telling the truth, however a relative who ended up with dad’s school year book for his senior year claims that no such basketball game took place. Who knows what the real story is.

Dad had an interest in sports, but was not a particularly good athlete. The K-12 school was very small and anyone who turned out for the basketball team got to play. There were no practices. The few games they played were against other small schools and the games were shorter than regulation high-school games, maybe ten minutes a half, I’m not sure. Dad was not good at dribbling, passing, shooting, or defending. But behind the house was a pole with a basketball hoop and dad practiced making free throws every day. He did free throws until he got quite good at it. 

In the game against Oshkosh he final score was 3-2: that was three points for Chappell and two points for Oshkosh. Chappell never scored a basket, but they scored on free throws. Dad scored the last free throw and won the game. After the game his teammates carried him off the court on their shoulders.

The Bicycle Trip

When dad was in high school he and a friend named Cecil Stanley rode their bicycles from Chappell to in Lincoln,  a 350-mile trip. The other boy’s family was moving to Havelock (near Lincoln) and the boy thought it would be great fun to ride his bicycle to his new home, and talked dad into going with him. The highway was gravel and dirt for almost the entire distance. It had rained the night before their departure, so the first day out the bikes wouldn’t move because so much mud got stuck between the fenders and the tires. They had to stop frequently and use sticks to scrape the mud out. The bicycles had balloon tires and only one gear, so it was slow going. They only made 35 miles the first day, but the second day they got all the way to North Platte. They had a pup tent and blankets and cooking utensils, which they tied on to their bicycle with rope. Dad mailed a postcard home to grandfather every day to let him know how things were going. Cecil was a year older than dad and bigger and stronger and he rode a half-mile to a mile ahead, until dad complained. Grandfather went down to the gas station in town and asked drivers coming from the east if they had seen two boys on bicycles. Each time he asked they answered that yes, they had seen a bigger boy on the lead bike and a smaller boy about a half mile behind. After arriving on Lincoln, dad came back on the train.

Model-T Ford

At some point grandfather bought dad a car. It was probably when he was in college,  and I assume it was a Model-T Ford, but I am not certain. One time dad was hotdogging with some other kids and flipped the car. No one was hurt and the car was not seriously damaged, but he was very ashamed. I remember dad telling me that the head on the engine had to be pulled every year so the valves court be ground at a machine shop. Dad told me the only tools needed to work on the car were a screwdriver, a wrench, and a pair of pliers. 

Crosses on the Hills

One time grandfather drove the family back to his father’s home in Bethany, Missouri, to find the old family home and look up relatives and old acquaintances. Dad didn’t tell me anything about the time spent in Bethany, but he did share an odd phenomenon they experienced while driving there. At the time state governments were racing to pave the highways for the new influx of automobiles. Missouri came up with a clever, but fatal method of building highways faster than the other states — they built one lane highways. Once grandfather crossed the state line into Missouri they began to notice groups of small white crosses at the top of each hill. Drivers could not see cars approaching from the other side of the hill and were being killed by head-on collisions.

Nebraska Wesleyan

Dad attended Nebraska Wesleyan College in Lincoln for his undergraduate studies. His parents, strict Methodists, had forbidden him from smoking and drinking, although they disobeyed the church’s tenets by allowing him to play cards and dance. While in Lincoln dad took up all of these vices, and particularly liked to dance. He told me once that he was one of the most dapper dressers on campus.

Hobos on the Trains

Over the years I heard rumors that there had been a falling out between my father and grandfather, which led, ultimately, to my father’s departure from Nebraska. At some point when I was an adult dad told me a story about the Great Depression and how his father’s and his own views on the suffering caused therein came into conflict. At the time I was unable to put two and two together, but now realize he was giving me his side of the story of the rift between him and his father. From what I understand, there was no blow-up between the two, but a slow but strong religious and moral schism. Still, more than 50 years after the incident, I could tell dad still had very strong feelings.

The Johnson family belonged to a very conservative branch of the Methodist Church. Drinking, dancing, and gambling were forbidden. Grandfather took the teachings with a grain salt. Frequently on Saturday nights he pulled the living room curtains closed so prying eyes could not see in. He played records on his Victrola while the family played cards and sometimes dad danced with his sisters.

Not long after the Great Depression hit in 1929 hobos (or more properly today, homeless people) began appearing riding the freight trains that went through Chappell. With each passing year the numbers of hobos increased. Eventually the national unemployment rate reached 25%. The hobos were desperate for work and many of them had left their families in order to ride the trains in search of work. 

As dad got older he finished Sunday school and joined his parents and other adults attending the Sunday church service. In Sunday school dad had been taught the Christian God was a God of love and Jesus had cared for the less fortunate. Then one Sunday when he was with his parents, in his sermon the minister addressed the situation of the unemployed. He said that they were irresponsible people because they had not planned their finances wisely, and now, unemployed, were suffering the consequences of their own actions. He said that unemployment was a lesson God was teaching them, and they would have to learn the hard way, and, finally, that it would be a sin against God to help the unemployed. 

The sermon shocked my dad. Not only did it go against what he had been taught in Sunday school, he felt it was heartless and cruel. Later he asked his father what he thought about the sermon, and his father answered that he thought it was a fine sermon and he agreed with the minister. His father felt like these were shiftless, lazy people who could find jobs if they really tried hard enough. This shocked dad even more. It seemed obvious to him that the hobos on the trains were desperate for work and were suffering great hardships in order to find it. To him, the bottom line was the haves were not willing to share with the have-nots, and were using religion to justify their selfishness.

So the sermon set things in motion, but I have no idea how long it took for the break to occur, or if any words were exchanged between dad and my grandfather. Grandfather was the head of the Republican Party in Deuel County and had made dad head of the Young Republicans. During the presidential campaign of 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt was heading the Democratic ticket, dad resigned as head of the Young Republicans and went across the street to the courthouse and registered as a Democrat. I remember him telling me, it must have been quite a shock to the family because he was one of the only registered Democrats in Deuel County. He laughed and said, back then everyone in Deuel County was either a Republican or a Socialist. I don’t know if dad stopped attending the Methodist Church. I remember talking with him once about religion after I had read Inherit the Wind, which was about the Scopes Monkey Trials. During the discussion he told me he was an atheist, and that he thought church ministers were frequently the most ignorant and prejudiced people in their communities.

Recently I have asked myself this question: why do I write? When I was in school I wrote as part of the learning process. As an academic, writing was part of my job. Later I wrote books and articles to inform others, and for their enjoyment and pleasure. I am no longer writing term papers, books, nor articles. But I am still writing. Why am I writing?

I write for myself. It is good mental exercise, a way to sooth the soul, a form of meditation, a way to integrate my thoughts and emotions, and to look back at where I have come from and see how I got where I am today. I think writing has made me a better person. It allows me to see myself and those around me more clearly. And to understand. Where am I going? I do not know, so I cannot write about that. When I am gone, someone else will have to write that for me.

In my high school English composition class the young, bright-eyed, red-haired, freckle-faced teacher (whose name I have long forgotten) told the class to write about ‘what you know.’ I took her advice to heart and have always written about what I know, or feel. I write about events, some humorous, some tragic, but I am really writing about emotions — love, laughter, loss, disappointment, fear, anger, joy.

MY WRITING JOURNEY

That freckle-faced English teacher must have seen some promise in my writing because the second semester of my junior year she placed me in an advanced composition class. Soon afterward I was invited to join the staff of the student literary magazine. At the end of the school year I was admitted into the Quill and Scroll Honor Society. That was a thrill, but I still did not understand what this writing thing was all about. Unfortunately, my senior year I changed high schools and that nipped my writing life in the bud.

I did my first serious writing during my senior year in college. I had not done well academically until then (I was a lousy test taker), but that year I had three courses that focused on research. In all three classes I wrote papers on different aspects of Latin American geography, economy and society, and to my great surprise (I was not a good student overall) upon graduation I received the Rowe Award for the most outstanding undergraduate research paper in the field of  Latin American studies (this was at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University).

After graduation I went into the Peace Corps and ended up living in the jungles of southern Costa Rica. During that three-year stretch I wrote to my parents on a regular basis. My mother saved my letters and typed them up. Although my letters were no great literary work, they did document my life in the Peace Corps, and years later became useful in jogging my memory.

I am a ponderously slow reader but occasionally I find a writer who captures my imagination and I feverishly devour his or her books. Among these authors are Mark Twain, E. B. White, Loren Eiseley, David McCullough, James Herriot and Jon Krakauer. Over the years I developed a love of books and this in turn led me into the field of librarianship. To make a long story short, I ended up at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. Librarians at Clemson were on a tenure-track system and were expected to do research and to publish. It was publish or perish, so I had to write, and it was dry, boring stuff. But I enjoyed the writing process. What I needed was something more interesting to write about.

It was in the mid nineteen eighties when I became interested in imported beer, and shortly thereafter in the craft brewery movement. Desktop publishing had just been invented, so I got a computer and a printer and began publishing a beer appreciation newsletter called The World Beer Review. I know that has kind of a pretentious ring to it, and it was, pretentious. At the time the craft brewing movement was very young and it was difficult to find out what was going on other than by word of mouth. And as more and more breweries opened, a new movement was born — beer tourism. Where were these new breweries, what were their phone numbers, their hours of operation, the names of their beers, and so on? By now I was plugged into that word-of-mouth information network. Being both a librarian and a beer lover, I was in a unique position to see what was needed — a brewery guidebook — and with my knowledge and contacts, I was the person to write that book. In 1989 I threw myself into the task, and self-published On Tap: The Guide to North American Microbreweries and Brewpubs. Suffering from momentary insanity, I decided to invest my life savings and print 5,000 copies. After that I went into a deep depression. Five thousand copies! What possessed me to print 5,000 copies? But my gamble paid off and the book eventually sold out, and I wrote two subsequent editions. Soon I was writing brewery guides for honest-to-goodness publishers (Chronicle Books and Gulf Press) and was writing columns for several beer magazines. It was great fun and a wonderful adventure and I made enough money to help put one of my sons through college. But the income was not enough to live on. All that work and meeting all those publication deadlines eventually took a toll on my health. After undergoing some tests, a heart specialist told me, “Mr. Johnson, you can stay on this course and live maybe a few more years, or you can quit one of your jobs and live to a ripe old age. The choice is yours.” It was a painful decision, but the choice I had to make was obvious — I kept my job at the library, and quit writing. After all, it was the day job that put bread on the table. On the other job, I got free beer. A man cannot live by beer alone.

Afterward I came to miss writing and needed to fill that void in my life with something. As I was cleaning up my office one day I came across my letters from the Peace Corps. It took me the rest of the afternoon and on into the evening to read them all. I could not sleep that night and by sunrise I had come up with a plan — write a book about my Peace Corps experience. It would be kind of like All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot. Each chapter would be its own short story. I could write the book at my leisure and I would not be faced with all those deadlines. Voila!

So I began writing, and quickly discovered writing short stories was quite a challenge. It was hard, very hard. Whatever skill or knowledge that was needed to write a short story, whatever it was, I did not have it. It is difficult to find something when you do not know what you are looking for. The emotions were the important part of the stories, but the way I expressed them left the reader flat. What I eventually learned was to just tell the story without the emotions, but tell it in such a way as to evoke the emotions in the reader.

I joined the local writers’ circle and began reading chapters there, and got some helpful feedback. A friend from the Peace Corps who later did a stint as a high school composition teacher agreed to revise the chapters. Then I showed a few of the chapters to my older brother. He had kind of a hush-hush job with the federal government and had written several history books. The books were all classified information, so I could not read them, but I heard they were highly regarded by the select crowd who could read them, so any input from my brother would be valuable. His feedback was that my writing was okay, but by then hundreds of thousands of people had served in the Peace Corps and the novelty had worn off. It would be difficult to find a publisher, maybe impossible. That made a lot of sense, and I put my publishing hopes aside. But I kept on writing because it was important to me, even though it was not important to anyone else. It was kind of like keeping a journal. Over the years I kept thinking about the hard reality of my brother’s advise, and then one day I came to this realization — yes, there had been hundreds of thousands of Peace Corps volunteers, but it was also true that when Herriot began writing his books about his adventures as a veterinarian, there had already been hundreds of thousands of veterinarians. So the novelty of the subject matter really had little bearing on the success of the book. What did matter? The quality of the writing (plus, in Herriot’s case he had a built-in audience of animal lovers). By any stretch of the imagination, was my writing comparable to Herriot’s? Not on your life. So with a deep sigh, for the second time I put aside my hope of writing a book of short stories.

Years later I joined Facebook and eventually, with some trepidation, began posting stories. It was like a writer’s blog on Facebook, which was cheating, I guess. To my surprise, some friends liked my stories. It was great practice for me and I could kind of tell from the number of likes or lacks thereof, if a story hit home. Recently people have contacted me to say they want to read the stories, but do not want to have a presence on Facebook. So I decided to create this blog, where I can collect the stories, and eventually turn them into a book.

AUNT CAROLINE’S MANUSCRIPT

Meanwhile, as these events were unfolding in my life, in another part of the world a manuscript was lying hidden in an old footlocker in a dark, dusty attic. The manuscript told the story of growing up in the early part of the twentieth century in Friday Harbor and Bellingham, Washington, and had been written by my aunt, Caroline Reed. I never met aunt Caroline because she died of a heart attack a few years before I was born. The manuscript ended up in her sister’s house, my aunt Virginia. Decades later aunt Virginia came across it as she was cleaning the attic, and decided to edit the papers and publish the book. When the book was ready she had 500 copies printed to give away to family and friends and local libraries and historical societies. By then Friday Harbor had developed into a popular tourist destination. One day Virginia received a call from the local bookstore. The owner of the store had heard about the book and told Virginia tourists were always asking for books on local history, of which there were hardly any. She took five copies on consignment, and thought it might take quite some time to sell that many books. A week later she called back for more copies; they had sold out. Sales continued to be robust and eventually Virginia had to print 500 more copies. The book, Underpinning, is now in its second edition.

A GIFT IN KIND

Aunt Caroline’s book was like a message in a bottle. With the help of her sister, that bottle was cast upon the waves, and half a century later it washed up on a far shore, and I read the message in it. In like manner, I write for an unborn relative on a far shore in the distant future, and I cast this bottle upon the waves. It is my gift to you, whoever you are.

INTRODUCTION

I have always been fascinated with family history, especially my own, and yet have known little about my ancestors. To begin with: what were their names; where and when did they live; how long did they live; what did they look like; and how many siblings did they have? Beyond these basic facts were questions like: what kind of houses did they live in; where did they go to school; what did they do for a living; what pastimes did they enjoy; what religion did they practice, if any; what language did they speak; what did they die of? Finally, of course, I wanted to know what were their hopes and dreams, their fears and phobias, how they saw the world, and how they felt about their existence on this small planet we call Earth.

My father had an excellent memory and over the years told many stories about his life. My mother did not remember nearly as much as my father did, but occasionally something jogged her memory and she would tell us about an event, or what life was like in the old days. Like me, my maternal grandmother was also interested in her ancestors and did some research. I only saw it very briefly many years ago, but my understanding is that it is still on file at the headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, DC.

On the Johnson side of the family, my father wrote an article about our family for the Deuel County History (Deuel County Historical Society, Hansen Printing, Des Moines, Iowa, 1984). Also, my cousin Tom Ferris wrote down some important family history.

On the Reed side of the family, other than the basic research done by my maternal grandmother, I knew little. Then, in 1990 a book was published about the years my aunts and uncles spent growing up in Friday Harbor and Bellingham, Washington. The book, Underpinning, was written by my aunt Caroline Reed. She died before I was born, and before the book was ever published. The typed manuscript sat in a dusty footlocker for more than 40 years. Then one day my aunt Virginia got it out, and after some editing, had it printed in book format. The book is a goldmine of Reed family history and I have read it many times.

In a side-note, in 1970 I married Maria de Los Angeles Ramirez Mora in her hometown of San Rafael de Heredia, Costa Rica. As I got to know Maria’s family, and other Costa Ricans, I became aware that Costa Ricans placed little importance on their ancestry. It was thought my father-in-law, Juan Daniel Ramirez Paniagua, was mostly of Spanish origin, and my mother-in-law, Digna Mora Sanchez, was mostly of native American origin. But they had no details, In fact they didn’t even know the names of their great grandparents. No one seemed to write down any family history, and if they did, when a family member passed away, all written documents were thrown away. When I first met one of my Costa Rican brothers-in-law he told me some interesting stories about my father-in-law, but years later when I brought up the subject with him, he no longer had any recollection. But I remembered, and from that experience, realized how important it was that I write down my recollections.

Eventually aunt Caroline’s book became an inspiration. I realized someday some member of our family will be as interested in our heritage as I am, and it was my responsibility to continue the tradition started by my aunt.

JOSEPH C. JOHNSON

Here is the story of my great grandfather as told by my cousin Thomas Ferris in a letter to his children in 1990 — 

Joseph C. Johnson [Joseph Lewis Johnson’s grandfather, and my great grandfather] . . . arrived at Chappell, Nebraska, in 1885 in a covered wagon with his wife, Laura, and his six children: Thomas, age 14; Chloe; Lucy; Helen; Mary (called Molly); and Stelle . . . Joseph was born in Caldwell County, Missouri, in 1842. His father, Christopher Johnson, was born in Ireland and his mother, Francis O. (Fanny) Bryant, born in Ohio, was of Irish ancestry. The Johnson family came to Clay County, Missouri, in 1838 as pioneers.

In 1858, when Joseph was 16, he left home and went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he worked for several months as a teamster for the U.S. government. On one trip to Laramie, Wyoming, he was involved in a skirmish with hostile Indians at Horse Creek, Wyoming. Joseph then went to California where he worked in the mines at Hangtown for three months. He then went into the livestock business in Santa Rosa County. He returned to Missouri in 1860, arriving at St. Joseph on October 10th.

In the fall of 1861 Joseph enlisted in the Missouri “Six Month State Militia.” He then served for one and a half years in Company G of the Sixth Missouri Volunteer Cavalry and then in the 13th Missouri Cavalry until the end of the Civil War. Most of his Civil War service was in Colorado, but he was also in Missouri, Texas, and Oklahoma. He became familiar with the country around Chappell while he was stationed at Fort Sedgwick near Julesburg, Colorado, which is about 15 miles from Chappell.

After the Civil War Joseph made two trips to California working on wagon trains,  then went into business in Bethany, Missouri. In 1870 he married Laura C. Lewellen who was born and raised in Pennsylvania.

——————————————

In my father’s article in the Deuel County History he fleshed out quite a bit more family information. Following are excerpts from his article — 

The family lived in Bethany until 1885 when Joseph brought them to what is now Deuel County, Nebraska (in 1885 the area around Chappell was still part of Cheyenne County). Joseph homesteaded on the Lodgepole Creek about a mile outside of town. He bought more land, much of it at $1.00 an acre, until his ranch consisted of 1,760 acres and extended from the Lodgepole Creek to the South Platte River. The family built and lived in the first frame house in the area. The other settlers in those days were still living in sod houses. When I was a boy there were still a few sod houses out in the country around Chappell that were still occupied.

Joseph C. Johnson was killed by a train in 1917. He had become deaf and did not hear the train whistle  He and his wife Laura are buried side by side in the Chappell cemetery.

————————————————

My father added a little more to my cousin’s story about my great grandfather’s death. —

Wheat prices from the Chicago Commodity Exchange were posted daily at the wheat elevators on the south side of Chappell. Being a wheat farmer, my great grandfather walked down to the elevators everyday to check the prices. This entailed crossing the railroad tracks. Some men who were passing the time playing checkers saw the danger my great grandfather was in as he crossed the tracks, and shouted at him, but he failed to hear both them and the train whistle. Apparently the locomotive just grazed his head, but it was a mortal wound.

Here is more from father’s article in the Deuel County History — 

They homesteaded on the Lodgepole Creek, just a mile southeast of town and started farming and cattle ranching. As did most settlers on the creek, they built a dam and irrigated a small area near the creek. The pond created by the dam provided a place to fish and swim in the summer and a place to skate in the winter. Ice for the iceboxes, then used for refrigeration, was cut there and stored, packed in straw, in big pit on the south bank,

My grandmother died not long after arriving in Chappell, but I do not know the date of her death. My grandfather lived on the ranch until he was too old to run it, then moved to town where he lived in a little frame house across the street from the present location of the Thornburg’s Variety Store. He died in about 1917 when struck by a train while walking back to town from the Farmer’s Elevator. He had be become deaf and did not hear the whistle.

Very few people had settled in Chappell by 1885. The only resident I can recall my father mentioning was John O’Neal, who was the Union Pacific station agent. He had built a lean-to against the station from which he operated a general store. My father told me of a few farmers living on the north table land, but the only one I can remember is Knute Ekwall. When I was a boy the Neumanns, Gus Brown, Cy Brown, the Soderquiests, the Wolfs, the McHattons, McAuliffes, Pyles and Persingers all had ranches along the creek not far from town and I presume that they came to Chappell about the same time as my father.

———————————————-

IRISH ANCESTRY

As far as the Irish ancestry goes, when I first heard this from my cousin Thomas Ferris I was working at Clemson University, South Carolina. I thought it was odd because I’d never heard that Johnson was an Irish family name. One day I was talking to Dr. Jerome V. Reel, who was a British historian, and mentioned to him about my Irish connection. Dr. Reel told me that the Irish Johnsons were actually Scotch Irish, sent by the British to Ireland to subdue the Catholics. Technically, he said, the Johnsons were not Scottish, but an English clan that lived in the highlands along the border with Scotland. He said many of them were a rough bunch who herded sheep and cattle by day and raided the lowlands by night, in search of horses to steal. Sounds like a colorful past, but who knows how much truth there is in it.

THOMAS MARTIN JOHNSON

My grandfather, Thomas Martin Johnson, was born in New Hampton (Harrison County), Missouri, on February 15, 1871. In 1885, at age 14, he walked to Chappell, Nebraska, behind a covered wagon from his home in Bethany, Missouri.

Here is more from father’s article in the Deuel County History — 

My parents had three children: Laurabelle, born in 1900; Dorothy born in 1905; and myself, born in 1910. Laurabelle married Samuel Reed Ferris who was a druggist at the Thompson Pharmacy. He later had his own drugstore in Chappell. He joined the Army at the beginning of World War II and stayed in until he retired in the middle sixties, shortly after which he died of a stroke. He saw service in Germany and Japan. They had one son, Thomas George, who lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He is married and has seven children and two grandchildren. Laurabelle lives in Washington, DC.

Dorothy was graduated from the University of Iowa and became a dietician and statistician. She lived in Denver for many years and was last employed at the University of Colorado Medical College. She now lives at the Frasier Meadows Retirement Home in Boulder.

My parents were active in the affairs of the Methodist church, the Chappell schools and the various social and civic organizations. My father was the first Worthy Patron and my mother the first Worthy Matron of the Eastern Star Lodge. My mother died on Sept. 25, 1952. My father died on May 4, 1962, at the age of 91. During his long life he engaged in a variety of activities. Although his primary occupation was banking, real estate and insurance, at one time or another he taught country school, was the Chappell Postmaster, was assistant secretary of the Nebraska State Senate in Lincoln, was owner and publisher of the Chappell Register (1898-1908), and sold Rumley tractors. In about 1914 he went to Denver and bought one of the Chappell’s first automobiles, bringing home with hi a mechanic to drive and service the car. Together they started a garage which may have been the first such in Chappell. It was located in a cement block building next to the power plant. I particularly remember as I still have a scar on my cheek, the result of a cut received when I poked my head through the windshield when Laurabelle drove our car into the side the garage doorway. I can recall when we had no electricity, running water or central heat in our house. My sisters tell me that our house was he first house in Chappell to have those conveniences, but I cannot vouch for that. When I was small the only heat upstairs was a register in the floor of the bathroom which was directly over the coal-burning kitchen range. We had a coal fired “base burner” in the living room which was put up each fall and taken down each spring. We had a chicken house and barn in the back yard and my sisters say that they had to drive the cow out to the pasture every day. I believe that for a time after our barn was torn down, we kept a cow in Doc Doran’s livery stable down behind the power plant.

My father had great interest in growing trees and planted many trees in town and on farms that he owned. I often helped him haul water in cream cans to the cemetery to water the trees around the graves of my grandparents. The wind-mill on top of the hill never seemed to work. He once told me the first grave in the Chappell cemetery was that of his cousin, a boy named Williams, who was killed when struck by lightning while standing with my father beside the barn on our ranch. My father was knocked unconscious, but was saved because his mother worked over him until he was revived.

——————————-

I honestly cannot remember how many trips I made to Chappell to see my grandparents. I can remember three — one in the winter and two in the summer. I think all three trips were made on the train. The train did not stop in Chappell so we got off at Sidney. My brother tells me we went there in the winter when I was a baby. It was bitterly cold and windy the morning we drove to Sidney to catch the return train. We were going directly into the wind and as a result the car radiator froze up. Grandfather turned the car around and drove it backwards for the last few miles into Sidney. While waiting for the train Tom and Kate got into a coal bin in the station and became covered in grimy coal dust.

I remember my grandparents’ house as a large house with high ceilings. I was fascinated with the chiming of the grandfather clock that stood in the living room. I know there was a trip in the winter because at one time there were some black-and-white photos of me playing in the snow. One summer there was a terrible storm with dry lightning. On my last trip I spent quite a bit of time playing with a brass alligator nutcracker. When it was time to leave, as we were saying good-bye my grandmother gave me the brass alligator. That was the last time I saw her because a few years later she died during a heatwave. I had the nutcracker in Longview for several years, but never saw it again after we moved away in 1960.

———————————

I have three vivid memories of my grandfather.

HOW TO CATCH A PHEASANT

The first one was when he drove us out on the prairie. Someone in the car spotted a pheasant and grandfather stopped the car so we could watch it. I was fascinated with it. With a broad grin on his face, grandfather asked me if I wanted to go catch it. The pheasant seemed to be darting around among the brush pretty fast and I sensed he was pulling my leg. Anticipating a chance encounter with a pheasant, he had stuck a salt shaker into his pocket before leaving the house. He pulled the salt shaker out of his pocket and told me the way to catch a pheasant was to run after it and put salt on its tail. Grandfather put the salt shaker in my hand and told me to go catch the pheasant. I looked up at him incredulously. When he realized I wasn’t going to fall for his trick, he said, “If you’re close enough to put salt on its tail, you’re close enough to catch it.” Everyone in the car broke out laughing. The joke was on me, but I had enough sense not to make a fool of myself running around on the prairie chasing a pheasant.

SUGAR ON MY CEREAL

The second memory was of having breakfast with grandfather. After waking up, my mother helped me get dressed, washed my face, combed my hair and sent me down to the breakfast table. Grandfather was the only person at the table. At that stage in my early life mom helped me with everything. I knew how to shovel food into my mouth, chew, and swallow, but that was about it. Grandfather told me he had just made some delicious oatmeal and asked me if I would like some. I shook my head yes. He then set a bowl of hot oatmeal in front of me and I just sat there and looked at it. “Would you like some cream on your cereal?” He asked. I nodded my head. He poured some cream on the cereal. “Sugar?” he said. I nodded my head again. He set a small bowl of sugar with a silver spoon in it next my cereal. My mother normally put sugar on my cereal for me, but after staring at my grandfather for a bit I realized I was going to have to do it myself. I lifted the spoon out of the bowl and clumsily dumped some sugar on my oatmeal. “No, no, no,” said grandfather, “This is how you do it.” With that he scooped a small quantity of sugar from the bowl and then tapped the spoon lightly as he passed it over the top of his cereal in a circular motion. I thought that was extremely clever and for the rest of my life that’s how I put sugar in my oatmeal.

THE SNAKE

The final memory was when grandfather drove us out on the prairie to visit the cemetery where my great grandfather was buried. Unable to read the tombstone, I wandered off and soon shouted “snake” at the crowd standing by my great grandfather’s grave. A huge, fat snake had slithered from beneath some sagebrush and was slowly coming toward me. My mother grabbed me and pulled me back. She said it looked like a rattlesnake. Grandfather said it was a bull snake and despite its menacing look, was harmless.

MY GRANDMOTHER

My grandmother’s name was May Blanche Loveland. She was born in 1877 in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. One of her uncles was a miller and a village in Pottawattamie County was named after him: Loveland Mills. The village no longer exists. My father speculates that her family moved to Julesburg in the early 1890s. May was working in the courthouse in Julesburg when my grandfather met her. They were married on October 10, 1898. She was a very small woman with curly hair. On my last trip to Chappell I was constantly playing with a brass alligator nutcracker. As we were leaving, she gave me the alligator. I think it got lost when we moved from Longview, Washington, to go back east. I believe my grandmother died in a heat wave in the late 1950s.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton