May 30th, 2010 Memorial Day Posting - Email From John Wiggins

Hello Family,

Since Memorial Day is tomorrow, I have family get togethers today and tomorrow, but I still wanted to do a quick post.

I love getting emails from family members with their memories that we can add to this blog. Recently I got the following email from John Wiggins that he said would be ok to share with you all:

Chris,

I just found out about your blog and I’ve spent the last hour or so taking a wonderful trip down memory lane as I have read and looked at the many wonderful things you have put on it. It is priceless!

I am the grandson of Delores, son of Keith (and brother of Lyle who I think you are acquainted with). I have many fond memories of Clifford and Lavell. They were always so good to my grandma. I used to love it when we would be sitting out on grandma’s porch on our weekly Sunday afternoon visit, and Lavell would come on over and visit with us. It was a real treat when Clifford would come too. I always really liked him. They were wonderful people, and always so kind to me.

When I was a teenager, my father wanted something to keep me busy one summer, so he had Clifford explain to him how to oil and graphite the wood shingles on a roof, and then he taught me. I spent much of the summer doing Delores’ roof and our roof (what a messy job!). When I was doing Delores’ roof, Clifford would come over and see that I was following directions and doing a good job. It always made me feel really good when he would give me his “mark of approval”.

Clifford taught my dad all about quality paint jobs, and I in turn learned from my Dad. I can’t paint a room now (or anything else, for that matter) without thinking of your grandpa Clifford.

Thank you so much for all you are doing to share the gold mine that you have been blessed with. I look forward to following your blog.

Sincerely,

John Wiggins


Here's my reply:

Hi John,

Thank you for joining the blog and your nice email. The Johnson/Hokanson blog is turning out to be a great blessing in disguise. I'm enjoying getting to know our extended family...people that I never knew existed.

I remember as a little kid I loved Great Aunt Dee. She was always so nice to me. On Sundays when we visited Grandma & Grandpa I'd try to sneak away and run over to her house. I'd knock on the door and stand there with my hand out.

She always had a smile and I think there was only once or twice where she didn't have any candy to give.

In terms of relation to the Johnsons & Hokansons I'm on the tail end of the family tree since I'm the second to last in my family. Grandpa Johnson died when I was 13 and Grandma died when I was 19, so I never got to know them really well.

I've enjoyed hearing your and Lyle's memories of your associations with them. It helps me get to know them better.

I'm so interested to learn more about the Hokanson Family. As I keep posting I would like to see more people from the extended family join and share their memories and thoughts about the family.

Thanks for you kind words, interest and support!

Chris Johnson


Memorial Day is about remembering our family both here and gone and I'm sure the family members we are discussing in this blog are thrilled we're still remembering them, talking about them, and love and miss them.

Thank you for the wonderful email and I appreciate your input and additions to this blog. Please encourage any of your family members that you think might be interested in this blog to join and contribute!

Have a very wonderful Memorial Day!

Chris

Clifford William Johnson Desk Private Journal 1957

By this point in time G-Gpa (William Oscar) Johnson had passed away on June 4th 1954 at 88 years old, so Grandpa (Cliff) was used to working alone.

Some entries in the last two journals show that G-Gpa was still doing some work well into his 80’s. Both of them had an incredible work ethic.

Some of Grandpa’s clients during this year include:

Ridges, Anderson, Southwick, Wallace Ellis, Frank Ellis, Hogle, A.H. Hollenback, Wolfers Store, Warner, Brown, Clark Rich, Fister, J. Silver, (Judy?) Pugmire, Davis, H. Peery, Doris, M. Pitts @ Ben Lomond Center, Allred, Bennett, Silvers, Morby, O.C. Hammond, Dr. Wilson Hales.

Several of the following entries peaked my curiosity:

Feb 9th (Sat) 1957: Grandpa worked for someone named “Southwick” and after putting in 52 hours of work over an 11 day period (plus a couple side jobs for other people) Grandpa went fishing in Mexico. (Note: I may have some slides from this trip, but we’ll see about that later.)

Mar 16th (Sun) to Mar. 23rd (Sat) 1957: Grandpa did 28 hours worth of work for someone in the “Hogle” family and I wonder if it was at the zoo.

I checked the zoo’s website and it said that from 1956 to 1962 the zoo underwent some expansions and additions. I wonder if Grandpa was involved with any of that during this week or if he was just working for a Hogle family member at their home or business.

















July 12th (Fri) to July 13th (Sat) 1957: Grandpa did 10 hours of work for “Chase Electric”.

Were Aunt Gwen and Montie Chase married during this time?


Many of the Journal entries are still dominated by the Eccles Family including:

Royal Eccles, Willard Eccles, Mrs. J. Eccles, and S.S. Eccles.

Aug 5th (Mon) to Oct 4th (Fri) 1957: Grandpa did a massive project for “Hammond” which took a total of 317 hours.

Sept 25th (Wed) to Dec 31st (Sat) 1957: During the tail end of his “Hammond” project Grandpa began working on projects for S.S. Eccles which took a total of 281 man hours including 5 that he worked on Christmas Eve.

Oct 3rd (Thurs) to Dec 14th (Sat) 1957: During this time Grandpa also did 36 hours worth of work for Willard Eccles. Many of the entries show Grandpa would work for S.S. Eccles for a number of hours in the morning and then go work several hours for Willard Eccles in the afternoon.

Clifford William Johnson (& W.O. Johnson) Dailyaide Journal 1950

I like the following signature in the front of the book by W.O. because it has the "& Son" part with it:























It seems they stuck by their slogan of "What is worth doing, is worth doing well." We can see that despite the fact it was four years since the last journal, W.O. and Grandpa (Cliff) were still doing business with many of the same clients:

Toby Larson, Arcadia, Lyman Pierce, Buckway, Lowell Ridges, W. Anderson, Shuback, Wolfers, Ridges, Frank Bartlett, Dr. W.H. Budge, Dr. Thompson, Dr. Fister, Jack Hilton, Clark Rich, C.A. Wright, L.T. Dee, Stone, Benning, L.S.P., Moesinger, Jack Felt, Shubach, Posnien, S.I. (or J.I.) Davis, Dr. R. Pugmire, Swanson Shoes, Dumke, Mountain States and Fister.

Throughout this year the Eccles family also gave W.O. Johnson & Son Painting a whole ton of business. Entries for Royal Eccles, Wm Eccles, Willard Eccles, S.S. Eccles and George Eccles dominate the book.

The pages for Jan 9th to Jan 16th are all torn out. I wonder what was on them.

















I thought this entry on July 6th 1950 was interesting because Aunt Gwen’s name really jumped out at me. It’s written really big and it’s clearly not in W.O.’s or Grandpa’s handwriting.

On the previous page it looks like someone was trying to write an “N” and got it wrong so they tried again on the next page. I bet its Dad’s (Glen's) handwriting.