I was born 31 August 1918 at home, in the old Willet place in Lindon, Utah to Harold Charles Johnson and Eva Theona York. My parents were married the 16th of November 1917 in the Salt Lake Temple. I have 4 brothers and 4 sisters. We were all born at home, either at our home or at Grandma York's home, with Grandma as the midwife.

My father, Harold Charles Johnson, was born 6 November 1899 in Pleasant Grove, Utah, Utah County. Dad was about 5 feet 11 inches tall with blue hazel eyes, brown hair and he was well built. He was honest and he believed a person should give an honest days work for the pay he received and he always gave more than was called for. Uncle Clair said, one time, that the only thing he could find wrong with Dad was that he was too damn honest. Dad always saw the good in others and he never said anything bad about anyone. He was very friendly and he loved to shake hands with people and he passed this onto his children. He never met a stranger. He talked to them and soon found out that they knew someone in common or that they were distant relatives.

He would have loved to be a pioneer and he was a pioneer in spirit. He would have been a good one to forge West, build a city and then move onto the next one. He always bought a rundown place, built it up and when he got it built up and working good, he sold it and went somewhere else and bought another rundown place. We always told him that he was born 100 years late because he should have been born in the pioneer days. He would have been happy clearing the sagebrush to farm and build. Dad wasn't happy unless he had 2 jobs to do and he'd look ahead to 40 more that needed to be done. He was a hard worker and he taught us kids how to work.

He tried to discipline with kindness first. If that failed he used more drastic measures--like a little stick or a board, which was quite effective.

Dad was self-employed as a truck driver and farmer, except for 6 to 8 years. During that time he worked on the railroad, at Utah Copper, the Pipe Plant and at the Steel Plant on construction. However, he much preferred being self-employed. They always had a beautiful garden that both of them worked in.

When he was trucking he stayed at our place overnight and Zola always fixed him something to eat. He knew the back door was unlocked so if it was late he just came in and went to bed. Sometimes he brought a hired man with him. Dad would ask Zola if she had a fallen chocolate cake and if she did he'd eat it in milk. He was appreciative and he always thanked us for staying and for the meal.

If he was down when it was the kid's birthday he always reached in his pocket and gave them what change he had. He always had a love and a kiss for us when he came.

Mom didn't drive so he always took her shopping and he waited so patiently for her. He stayed in the car and no matter how long she was he never complained.

He attended his church meetings and he lived his religion. He worked in the M.I.A. and Seventy's Quorum and he was on a Stake Mission at one time. For years he spent many hours working on the Welfare Farm. He was a High Priest at the time of his death.

About 2 years before he died he had to stop working because of ill health. He died in the hospital in Jerome, Idaho on 13 December 1970. He was buried 17 December 1970 in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery, Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Mom was born the 3rd of January in Orem, Utah. She had dark hair and hazel green eyes. She was 5 feet 6 inches tall and she was somewhat overweight most of her life. She was loving, kind, a good cook and homemaker and she loved her children. With Dad trucking, she had a lot of the responsibility of raising the kids and she saw to it that we always got to church. She was a compassionate person and she was always doing for others. She put her husband, children and others before herself.

She no more than got the clean up done from one meal when she started fussing and preparing the next one. Her hands were always busy doing crafts and handwork. She sewed, made the projects they did in Relief Society, quilted and made many gifts. She was a very good cook and she made such yummy baked goods and deserts. She always bottled fruit and jams. After Dad had diabetes she cooked and bottled special foods and fixed special deserts for him. She watched his diet very closely--closer than he would have liked her to.

She honored the Priesthood and Dad being the head of the household and his decision, though she had a mind of her own.

Her living conditions were real primitive at times--no electricity, bathroom or running water. She took this in her stride and handled it well with little complaining. She would just get things nice when Dad would move the family onto another rundown place and she had to start all over again.

Mom also lived her religion. She was the Relief Society Secretary several different times and under different Presidents. She was the Garment Representative in Jerome for many years. She and Dad were on the Old Folks Committee for a few years. She was a visiting teacher most of her life. She and Dad both sang in the Choir when they lived in Jerome.

Her health was good for the most part of her life except before and after Byron was born. Her health began to go downhill after the death of her companion, and it continued to get worse. She had a stroke a short time before her death.

The folks moved to Jerome, Idaho in November 1944. Berniece, Leo and I were married and we stayed in Utah. When they got alone and the family had all moved away from Jerome, Dad and Mom talked about moving back to Utah to be closer to some of their children, but it didn't work out that way. Dad passed away in Idaho and Mom stayed there for a couple of years. We all worried about her being up there alone so we got her to move back to Utah.

She lived in our basement 2 years prior to her death. She died 2 February 1976 at the home of her daughter Berniece, in Provo, Utah. She was buried 5 February 1976 in the Pleasant Grove City Cemetery.

My brothers and sisters are as follows:

Name Born Died Who They Married

Leo Y. 16 Oct 1919 6 Jan 1973 Illa R. Hardman

Berniecee 06Jul 1921 Clarence R. Kirkwood

Sterling Mark 29 May 1924 2 Sep 1964 Pearl D. Beeman

Arva 19 Apr 1926 8 Mar 1929

LaRue 13 Aug 1928 Robert E. Walker

Annabeth 21 Jan 1936 Gary V. Tomlinson

Charles Glade 20 Jul 1937 Ollie J. Fife

Byron Adelbert 13 Apr 1942 Kay L. Pasket

My mother told me I only weighed 2 pounds when I was born and she was so frightened all during her pregnancy, not knowing what to expect. When she asked her Mother how babies were born, Grandma York said, "don't worry about it. It will come out the way it went in," which didn't console her at all. They carried me around on a pillow of cotton for 2 months and they didn't even dress me. Mom got pneumonia during this time. Mrs. Shoell, Vern Shoell's mother, had a baby born the same day as I was and they pumped milk from her breasts with a breast pump to feed me until mom got well.

I was the first one to go to school and I was usually the one that brought home measels, mumps, chicken pox, etc. The rest of the kids got those diseases from me. In the spring of 1928, I got scarlet fever, so they kept me in a room by myself. My brothers and sisters had to stay home from school to, even though they were well. They didn't get scarlet fever until after they returned to school and they got it from some of the kids at school. I stayed with Grandma York while they were sick so I could go to school.

I was out of school from 6 to 8 weeks every year with a sore throat or tonsilitis. The doctor told the folks to have my tonsils out but they couldn't afford it and I was 21 years old when they were finally removed. I was so sick I wanted to die--I thought.

I got sick at the Steel Plant one time and they took me to the American Fork Hospital. The symptoms were that of a heart attack but the tests proved that it wasn't a heart attack.

On the 4th of February 1979, I slipped on some ice at the Steel Plant parking lot on my way into work and broke my leg. It wasn't easy for me to get used to walking on crutches, especially going up and down stairs I was off work 5 months.

In September of 1984 I had pneumonia and I had to go to the hospital. We had just started to harvest the grapes. The family said, "what won't you do to get out of picking grapes?" Of course this wasn't true because I never did mind picking grapes.

I've always had good health until three years ago and it exspecially hasn't been anything to brag about during the last year.

I went to grade school in the old Lindon Red School house from the 1st grade through the 6th grade. The rest rooms were in the building but you had to go outside to get to them. One time a porcupine got in the hallway as you went into the rest rooms and it about scared everyone to death.

When I first went to grade school I wore a tie and Ken Gillman and Bee Cobley came up to me and said, "I've got a job on the railroad pulling ties, and they pulled my tie so darned tight that it had to be cut off. I never wore another tie to school the rest of my life.

About the time I first started school I walked down to Bishop Cullimore's store, located at the bottom of Lindon Hill on State Street. I always wore a hat and I took my hat off as I went in the store. And everyone in there laughted at me because I had taken my hat off to go in the store.

We took lunch from home in those days, though once in awhile they did have chili or soup.

The teachers I remember were: Robert Walker, Emma Bush and Martha Johnson. We used to play games once in awhile in Miss Bush's class to break up the day of studying..

We used to play kick-the-can, softball, marbles, and hide and seek during the noon hour and at recess. In the winter we used to make ice slides and slide down over the hill. We also liked to sleigh ride down a hill called the "hallow". It was so steep that we'd go down the south side and half way up the north side. They have made it so that is isn't so steep now.

One time a couple of us had to stay in at recess to get some work done in Mattie Johnson's class. She let us go a little before the recess was up and when we went down the stairs we went down them like the clatter wheels of heck. Robert Walker, the principal, came out and sent us back up to the room. He went back to his room so we left and tip-toed down the stairs and went outside. When we came in he took us to the office and he sent me out for a stick to give as a whipping-- (we hadn't put anything over on him). I brought in a stick about 1-1/4 inch in diameter and 4 feet long. He said, "aren't you afraid I'll hurt you if I use that?" I said, "yeah, I figured if I got one big enough you wouldn't dare use it." and he didn't either, but if I'd taken a little willow to him he would have used it.

We lived in three different places in Orem while we were in grade school - the Thorne place, the Robin place and the Jex place. They were all 2-1/2 to 3 miles away from the school house, and we had to walk to school. One time when I was walking to school in the winter time, my hands go so cold that I thought they were going to drop right off. I went into Aunt Leona Omer's and she had me put my hands in cold water to warm them up. We had a lot of snow in the winter then and it got really cold and we had a long way to walk, but that was the only way to get there. A lot of times the car wouldn't start in the winter time.

When we lived on the West Mountain we went to Payson High School for two years. We moved back to Orem and went to Pleasant Grove High School. We had a misunderstanding with a teacher and the principal, and I stopped going to school before I completed my 11th grade. Leo quit school at the same time. So one of us went with Dad on the truck and the other one stayed with the turkeys. I was the one that usually stayed with the turkeys. I got to do the jobs that the others didn't want to - like staying with the turkeys, milking the cow, etc.

We used to wear blue coveralls when we were little. Dad built a little box to set on the cultivator or leveler for us to ride in when he worked in the field. When we came in for dinner we would be covered with dust and we fell asleep eating our dinner. As soon as Dad went out the door we woke up and went back out to ride in the box. Mom tried to get us to stay in and have a nap but we wouldn't.

When we were kids we lived in Magna, Utah. The people we rented from were bootleggers and they had a "still." The police - new about it and they came and hunted for the still. The people had had a little dog that they had thought a lot of and when it died they buried it in a box in the yard. The police found what they thought was the still but it turned out to be the box with the dead dog in it.

One day when we lived in Magna the neighbor kids were playing with us. They threw a rock at a car and the lady driving the car stopped. The kids that threw the rock ran, but I didn't run because I didn't throw the rock. The lady said she was going to call the policeman but she must have believed me when I told her that I didn't throw the rock because she didn't call them. That always made an impression on me - not to throw rocks at cars and do things you shouldn't and to always be truthful.

The folks often went to visit a relative on Sunday afternoon, I was little for I hadn't started school yet. An hour or so before it was time to do the chores I'd stop playing and go in the house and say to Dad, "don't you think it's time for us to go home and do the chores?" They would stay a while longer and I'd make several trips in the house and fuss about getting home to do the chores.

When I was about IO years old we went into Salt Lake to visit Aunt Edna and Uncle Arden. They took us to Liberty Park to play and told me to watch the kids while they visited with some friends that lived nearby. Pretty soon the kids turned up missing and I hunted and hunted and I couldn't find them so I went back to the truck and cried. The kids had gone to where the folks were visiting but I didn't know that and I thought they were lost. After awhile one of the kids came back and told me where they had gone. I was so upset that it made me ill and I cried most of the way back to Orem.

I guess it has always been my nature to be a worrier, but when I'm given a responsibility I take it seriously. My family is always saying that I try to solve all of the world problems.

In the spring of 1929, when we lived on the Jex place, we had some sheep. We kept them on the other side of the canal and we had to go and put them in the shed at night so the dogs wouldn't get to them. School had just got out for the year and I went to put the sheep in. It was after dark and I stepped on a stick and it ran through my gym shoe and into my foot. That foot gave me a lot of trouble and for 2 weeks I couldn't stand on it at all. We were living on the West Mountain in 1934. I had just got through bathing one night and I touched my foot and it felt soft. Mama took a needle and open it up and the pus just rolled out of it. She started to put poltices on it and in a couple of days I pulled it open with my two fingers and a stick came out of it about 3/4 of an inch long and as big around as my little finger. It had been in there for 5 years.

When we lived in the Thorne place and the Jex place, up 16th north in Orem, we used to swim in the canal. In the winter they used to ice skate on the ice in the canal nearly all winter long (they left a little water in the canal) and they could skate clear to Lindon. I never did learn to ice skate. The minute I got on them I'd go down and hit my fanny and then hit my head on the ice. However, I did learn how to roller skate and as boys we used to go skiing.

We got ski's for Christmas one year. We kept getting up during the night to see if we'd got them, but they weren't there. We got up again at 6 o'clock in the morning and they still weren't there so we thought we weren't going to get them. Dad knew how much we wanted the ski's so they didn't put them out 'til after 6 o'clock.

Dad contracted beet fields to thin when we lived in Orem. He took us kids to crawl up and down the rows and thin the beets and did our knees get sore. It was always more fun to thin beets at Grandpa Johnson's place because he had some big trees and we would lay down in the shade and rest and we ate our lunch in the shade. We started at 6 o'clock in the morning and worked until dark - it was alot of hard work. Later Dad said that he felt sorry for us down in that hot sand but he didn't let on at the time.

The longest we lived in one house when we were growing up was 4 years - when the family all lived at home and before any of us got married. We lived in 6 or 7 different places in Orem, on the West Mountain, Magna, Soldiers Summit, Pleasant Grove and Lindon.

When we first moved down to the West Mountain, in February 1934, we didn't start school for a while We stayed home to get the ground plowed and ready to plant the grain. It had been an open winter (good weather). In fact, it was one of our dry winters in the year of 1934 and 1935. There wasn't enough water that year to water the whole place. When we first went down there we could have bought the 80 acres of ground for $5,000. After we had been there one summer, Dad asked about buying the place and Mr. Bullock wanted $10,000 for it. Dad had built it up and that's how much Mr. Bullock thought it had improved in the one years time Dad had been there. One reason we left there was because Dad felt that Mr. Bullock was unfair with him.

We saw an animal go into a pile of rocks while we lived there and we tried to get it. It turned out to be a skunk and we got enough perfume on us that they complained for weeks when we came around.

We used to have to get up and milk the cows and harness the horses before we got ready to go to school, 80 that Dad could go out and work.

I was more accident prone than the rest of the family. When we were in Magna we got some little rubber boots. We had a big file and we were poking holes in milk cans on the ice. I missed the can and the file went right down through my toe. It took boot, sox and all clear down to the bottom of my foot.

We were to Grandpa Johnson's for a family get-to-gether one time and all the kids took turns riding the push lawn mower. When I rode it I got my rear end cut, but no one else got hurt.

The people that had lived at the Jex place before us left some buck sheep there. They had big horns on them and we used to ride them. Everybody rode them without any trouble except me. One time when I rode one, it took me under the wagon and I got my ear cut. There were other times, other hurts and accidents, and they always seemed to happen to me.

I was working at a gas station at the time we got married in 1940. I went to work at Utah Copper, in Bingham, Utah, in 1941 and worked there for eighteen months. Then I went on construction at the Steel Plant. When they built it they figured it would only run a little while after World War Il. So I went to work at the Pleasant Grove Cannery and I worked there until I was drafted. I went into the Navy on the 30th of May 1942 and they gave me a medical discharge on June 30, 1942. I worked on the thrashing machine during that summer, and in September I went to work at Arden Dairy in American Fork. I didn't apply for work at the Steel Plant because I didn't think it would run too long. I thought the dairy job would always be there because people would always drink milk. I worked at the dairy for eight years and they shut the dairy down at that time. I could have kept my job with them but I would have had to work in Salt Lake City. I didn't want to drive that far or live in the Salt Lake area, so I went to work at the Steel Plant.

I worked at the Steel Plant 2 months short of 30 years. It had provided a good living but I couldn't wait to get out of that dirty place. I retired the 30th of July 1982.

My Ordinations Date By Whom

Blessing & Name 09 Mar 1919 Charles G. Johnson, my grandfather

Baptized 28 Nov 1926 Blaine Warnick - in the Pleasant Grove Tabernacle

Confirmed 05 Dec 1926 Gilbert W. Richardson

Deacon 09 Nov 1930 James L. Marrott

Teacher 07 Feb 1934 James H. Cragun

Priest 01 Mar 1936 Gilbert W. Richardson

Elder 13 Feb 1938 Byron P. Fisher

Seventy 13 Jul 1961 Antione R. Ivans (General Authority)

High Priest 01 Aug 1976 Eli E. Gourdine

Patriarchal Blessing 23 May 1944 David B. Thorne - Stake Patriarch

I was in the Aaronic Priesthood Presidency when I was a Deacon and Priest. I was a counselor in the Elders Quorum two or three different times.

When I worked at Arden Dairy, I brought cheese curds home and we all enjoyed them. The kids would say to me, "Daddy, would you bring home some more of that squeaky cheese?"

I got good whipping cream for 50 cents a quart and we had a desert with whipped cream on every night for supper. We used to make home made ice cream, too. I've always loved whipped cream and that was so rich and so good - better than what you buy in a store nowadays. The family always teased me about eating whipped cream on everything but mashed potatoes and I never tried that.

We enjoyed going to the Salt Lake Temple once a week with some other couples when I was in the Elder's Quorum. We usually stopped somewhere on the way home and had a hamburger or something and visited while we ate.

I've always worked on the Church Welfare Farm and many times I was the only one there. One year after I retired, I went up day after day and I was usually up there alone. I picked most of our Ward's assignment of apples by myself and I helped two other Wards pick theirs. When the children were young, I insisted that they go and work on the Welfare Farm, but when they got older I invited them to go with me.

I don't like to go anywhere late so I usually go a little earlier than I really need to, but I'm there on time.

We've tried to be as self-sustaining as possible. We've always had a nice garden. When we lived in the little house we had chickens, pigs and goats. The kids loved to watch me milk the goat, They were usually right by me no matter what I was doing.

The neighbors were always borrowing my truck and tools and if they needed any help they knew where to come. They especially borrowed my truck for the scout drives, D.I. drives, etc. Both Bishop Flygare and Bishop Pead announced from the pulpit in Church that Brother Johnson had the best garden there was and if anyone needed help with gardening or with grapes to contact him, that he'd be glad to help. I have taught a lot of people how to prune their grapes and I've pruned grapes for several people.

We haven't moved around a lot in our married life. We lived in the little house on 1424 North 950 West for 14 years. Then we moved across the road and started to buy the Cunningham home and we lived there for 29 years and 3 months. That was a dream fulfilled because I had always wanted to buy that house.

After we sold our 6 acre farm just North of that home we still did a lot of farming. We had over an acre and a half that we had in row crops, raspberries, grapes and string beans to pick and sell - besides having a big garden, and some fruit trees. There is a lot of time and work that goes into that kind of farming. But there is a lot of satisfaction in working with the ground.

I have a testimony that the church is true and I am thankful for my family and for my blessings.

Zola told in her history a lot about our married life, family life and some things about our children, so I won't repeat them.