Willis Johnson

Among a company of pioneers was a seven-year boy, Willis Johnson, with his father, Snellen Marion Johnson and his mother, Sarah Hunt Greer, known to everyone in the group as Uncle "Cub" and Aunt "Sallie". Others among this company, who had been called by Apostle Charlee C. Rich, to settle the Bear Lake country in 1864, were Willis's uncles, aunts, cousins, and his indomitable-willed, high-spirited grandmother, Nancy Reddick Greer Johnson. She was the leader, the mouthpiece and champion of the cause of pioneering, building homes, and making settlements. Willis, being the oldest of both families, always had responsibility. The family spent the winter of 1864-1865 in a log cabin on Swan Creek, not far from the lake. There was always wood to gather, chop (for the indoor fireplace and the outdoor campfire) carry and pile near the door where his mother would have it ready to replenish the fire which had to be kept burning 24 hours a day from early October until late May. The snow was deep, the daylight short, the whistling winds came down the canyon at night and up the canyon during the day. Food was scarce; fish in the creek and lake was plentiful but sometimes hard to catch. Rabbis, Prairie chickens, and wild ducks and other game were killed, dressed and prepared. Nancy Reddick could cook meat to a "King's Taste." Anything from rabbit to antelope was appetizing and delicious when she took it from the old black skillet or out of the copper pot hanging over the fireplace. Willis was born on the trail in Ryow, New Mexico, on July 6, 1856, as his father was bringing some cattle from Texas to Utah. His boyhood days were filled with varied and colorful scenes of Indian fights, buffalo stampedes, gold seekers rushing to California, saloons, trading posts, and military forts. Sallie said Kit Carson was the only white man she knew there and he had a squaw wife. Snellen Marion came to Utah with the Seth Blair Company in 1855 but made a trip to Texas the following year for a herd of Texas Longhorns. Willis's schooling was meager; he was often termed a self-made man. He loved to read and study. He loved people and learned much from his friends and neighbors. He was always very trustworthy and dependable. Snellen Marion, his brothers and some of his sons, were talented in music. They played violins, guitars and mandolins and spent much time away from home playing for dances, etc. When asked why he didn't learn to play, he said, "someone had to provide food, the wood and tend the stock and the gardens." Just the same, Willis had a very pleasing singing voice and loved music. He would take his children on his knee, rock or jiggle them to sleep as he sang, "My Darling Nellie Gray", "Old Black Joe," "Starry Night for a Ramble," and many of the church songs. His favorites were "We Are Sowing," "Nay Speak No Ill," and "Proud Yes, Of Our Home In The Mountains." Willis met Eliza Rachel Kearl at Laketown, Utah, she had come from Grantsville as a fourteen-year-old girl, the oldest of three polygamist families of her father, James Kearl. Her mother, Ann, was a hard worker and taught Eliza to work, and work she did, helping her mother with running the Kearl Hotel, helping her father with the stock, and tending her younger brothers and sisters. She cooked, sewed, washed, and ironed from morn til night. She loved to ride horses, dance, read and play the organ. She had a brilliant mind and superior retention of what she heard and read. At the age of 21, she married Willis on February 28, 1876, who was a year younger than she was. Her father disapproved of the match and sent her from home with nothing but her clothes, but she had Willis. They had love, ambition, hope in the future, dreams of a home and family, a farm, and a life together. Willis loved and respected all his brothers and sisters. He was willing to help them out with advice, a welcome at his home or any financial aid he could give. His big barn, haystack and grain bins were free to weary travelers who came by to rest the team or spend the night. He joined with his neighbors and kinsman to purchase land, build canals and ditches and to buy machinery. He was always willing to loan a horse, a plow or hay rake to someone in need. He enjoyed going with friends for loads of wood down the canyons, or to cut and saw loads of ice from the frozen Bear Lake, haul it home and stack it away in bins filled with sawdust. The ice was used during the warm summer months for refrigeration of milk, meat, butter, drinks and to make homemade ice cream and often to preserve bodies before burial. Willis helped build the school house and was trustee for several years. James Kearl had the mail contract from Paris, Idaho, to Evanston, Wyoming, and Willis drove the mail over his route for several years. Eliza ran the post office in Laketown for several years, too. Willis and Eliza and all of their children were industrious and thrifty. Each one did his part; they arose early and worked late, clearing sagebrush, removing rocks, improving and cultivating the lad, buying a few more acres as the money became available. Willis had fine teams and high-spirited riding horses. He kept his heifer calves and colts to increase his cattle herd and horses. he had a fine farm with machinery, wagons and equipment. He always took care of his possessions, the barns, corrals sheds and a granary. Before the spring work started, all the harnesses and saddles were taken and carefully repaired and oiled, a rivet here, a new bolt there, or a piece of new strap if needed. The machinery was overhauled, the knives sharpened on the old grindstone, wagons greased, boards on the hayracks nailed, fences repaired, post holes dug and wires tightened and replaced. One remembrance of stormy days was Willis sitting on his shoemaking bench in the middle of the big kitchen floor with one of his children's' badly worn shoes. His fingers were full of shoe tacks and his hammer pounded them into the leather soles he was fitting. Even their cloth top overshoes were sometimes half soled with leather to make them last out the long cold winter and wet muddy spring. Alley said her pride was hurt when at school someone poked fun of her overshoes, but her feet were dry, and her parents were happy as she did not have a spell of the croup that she so often had. Rubber soles patched with leather was easier to take than of spoonful of coal oil and sugar, or a plaster of fat bacon and turpentine tied about her neck. Willis was an early riser. He wanted to beat the sun up and see its glory as it came up from behind the hills to the east and see how it made the water of Bear Lake look like glittering rhinestones momentarily changing color, or in the wintertime when it lazily came to make the icicles drip from the eaves. He wanted everyone in the household to be up with him. His lusty voice would call from the kitchen every morning. "The fire if made, the tea kettle is on, and the meat is cut." What more was needed for sleepy cooks to jump from their beds, make those hot biscuits, a kettle of Germain, or cracked wheat, fry the meat, warm up last night's leftover potatoes, open a battle of jam (preferably raspberry, and fill a big pitcher of milk and one of cream). Such were the breakfasts for years in the Johnson household. Willis inherited two pair of dentist forceps from his father-in-law, James Kearl, so he automatically became the town's dentist. He had lots of patients, too. Alley remembered that when people came to have a tooth pulled, she would get out of sight and the sound of the cries of pain. The straw stack up behind the bar, or a corner in her upstairs bedroom were her favorite retreats, where she could stick her fingers in her ears and shut the door during the operation. In those days, there were no drugs or injections to east the pain. Often someone would bring in a child red-eyed, with a swollen jaw and wracked with apin. The child would cling to its parents, cry and scream, so pulling the tooth was as painful for Willis almost as it was the patient. Eliza would have hot salt water handy to rinse the mouth and help deaden the pain. Alcohol, if available, was often rubbed on the jaw, or carbolic acid or laudanum soaked into a ball of cotton was pushed into the cavity of the aching tooth. Oil of cloves, oil of peppermint, camphor and Mentholatum were usually toothache remedies. A bag of coarse salt heated in the oven was applied to aching face and often gave relief. Willis's children loved the trips they made with their father to the gristmill located in the mouth of Laketown Canyon. Willis would back the wagon up to the granary door and load the wagon with sacks of wheat from the well-filled grain bins. On top of the sacks, two or three of his children would climb. Eliza, if she could leave her daily tasks, on occasion would get into the wagon seat by Willis, and with a word to the team, away they would go. The mill was a mile away. Soon the horses would be on a trot with clouds of dust billowing up behind them as the canyon breeze wafted it along. When they arrived at the mill, the sacks of wheat were dumped into a large hopper, and down it went to the basement. Then the wonderful process of changing wheat into flour began. They would go inside the mill and line up by the big troughs where the four, the bran and shorts, the Germain and the graham flour came down after being gorund. With amazement they would watch as the flour, etc. would go into the sacks and gabs provided for that use. Flour went into 48 pound bags; Germain and graham flour would go into 5, 10, and 25 pound sacks. The bran and shorts that was used to feed the pigs were put into 100 pound bags. The miller kept his share, about 40 pounds to the 100. They would take their share, load it in the wagon and head for home. One day the miller, Joseph Hodges, gave Alley pieces of damaged silk flour screen to make a dress for her doll. She said she couldn't get home fast enough to begin cutting and sewing that doll dress. Willis was very devoted to the L.D.S. Church. For 29 years he served in the Sunday School Superintendency and never missed a Sunday. Alley would tie his tie and watch as he dashed to the door pulling on his coat. Willis had suffered a broken shoulder as a young man when he was thrown from a horse, and it was never properly set so it was lame all his life. Often one of his children had to help him get his shirts, coat or overcoat on that arm. In spite of his farm work, his family cares, Willis with Eliza at his side never missed his church meetings, and for 11 years he carried on alone, as Eliza died in 1911. He always gave generously to his church and all ward improvements. Willis, and the other members of the Sunday School Superintendency, would prepare the church house for the Christmas program every year. The best pine tree from the west hills was always for the Sunday School. Hours were spent decorating the tree; boughs of pine and festive hangings encircled the whole room; a background of shepherds, wise men, and the Virgin Mary and her Babe set the stage for a worshipful program. In the afternoon, there was a children's dance with never to be forgotten fun. At night the adults had their dance and dance they did sometimes until one or two o'clock in the morning. Sociability, friendliness, and good old-fashioned fun was the order of the day. Eliza loved to dance, and dance she could; Willis wasn't quite as graceful, but he was always with her. She danced the Varsovienne with Aquilla Nebeker to the lilting tune, "Have You Seen My New Shoes" with the tips on, with the tips on the toes." She was president of the MIA and the Relief Society for many years. After her death, Snellen's mother, Sallie, spent a lot of time in his home. Willis loved and respected the church leaders in the ward and other men in authority. His home always had a bottle of consecrated oil. He had faith in the Elders and administering to the sick. When sickness, accidents or trouble came, the Elders were called in. Faith in the Lord, and a desire to serve him motivated Willis's entire life. Willis owned acres of land over along Big Creek in Meadowville Bottoms, and it was lake a vacation for his children to help put up the hay. Willis, Eliza, the boys and hired help took teams, machinery, food, a milk cow, and saddle horses and migrated for several weeks to a little log dirt-roofed cabin on a hillside. Alley, being the youngest, always went along with Eliza. Some of the family stayed behind to tend the garden, pick the currants and berries, pick the peas and beans and take supplies to the hay gang. Myrtle was a good cook and housekeeper so she did the work at home. Kate and Lila were married and had homes of their own. Willis was full of life, spirit and ambition right up t the final day. It was the 4th of October, ne of those beautiful bright fall days. Willis went to the creamery and the store to get Alley extras for dinner, which she was preparing. He called to Alley from the gate as he sat on his beautiful riding horse, "Dick." Alley took the parcels from his hands and watched him gallop to the barn to harness the team, ready to pull the grain wagon as the threshers were coming. Alley was busy baking pies, preparing vegetables and tending Vernon, her baby. Elaine and Jay were up to the corral playing. Soon they came to the house carrying some little wheels Grandpa had given them. At that moment, De Witt, a brother of Alley's, came asking for Willis. Alley sent him to the barn. As Alley stopped to take a pie from the oven, she heard a piecing call. Alley ran outside, and De Witt called "Come quick, Pa is dead in the barn. Alley ran to the barn, and there was Willis laying unconscious with a halter clutched in his hand where the bi black colt had kicked him. Alley ran to the house and telephoned for help and the doctor. Quickly the summoned neighbors carried his body to the house on a stretcher improvised from a car seat. They tenderly laid him on his bed. Caring for him what they could, they awaited the arrival of the doctor, who had to come 22 miles by team. The news of Willis's accident spread like wildfire. Neighbors came running from all directions. The threshing crew gathered on the porch and around the well curb. As the news from the bedroom said, there was no movement, heavy breathing, still unconscious, they stood or sat with hats in their hands, their hair tumbled with chaff and starw from the thresher. The doctor finally arrived and said there was little hope as the horse struck him with one foot firmly in the face, and the other foot grazed his shoulder. By 4 o'clock that afternoon Willis passed away. The family was stunned, how could it be" The Relief Society sisters came and prepared his body. George Asley of Paris, Idaho, made his casket. The children arranged the funeral, the ward choir to sing and his friends to speak. Friends, also dug the grave, prepared the church house, and gather flowers. He was buried October 7, 1922.