US Congressman. He was the eldest child born (he also had two sisters, Anna born in 1901 and Evelyn Eleanore born in 1909) to Johnas Robert Johnson and Amanda Caroline Parson Johnson in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was educated at local public schools and South High School, before attending the prestigious University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Y.M.C.A. Law School (later the William Mitchell College of Law) in St. Paul, Minnesota. After graduating from law school, he engaged in the insurance business for some time and then decided to enter politics. In 1924, he helped Floyd B. Olson with his first campaign to become the Governor of Minnesota. He then ran for public office and was elected as a Member of the Minnesota State House of Representatives and served in that position from 1929 to 1935. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to represent the Seventy-Fourth Congress in 1934. Following his time in the Minnesota State House of Representatives had expired, he became Deputy Commissioner of Insurance and State Fire Marshal serving in 1935 and again in 1936. He then decided to run for a seat in the United States Congress and was elected. He was elected as a Farmer-Laborite Candidate as a Member of the Farmer-Labor Party and served Minnesota's 5th District (Seventy-Fifth Congress) in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1939. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Seventy-Sixth Congress in 1938 and for election to the Seventy-Seventh Congress in 1940, having been defeated both times by United States Representative Oscar Youngdahl. After his term in the United States Congress had expired on January 3, 1939, he resumed his insurance pursuits and later operated a retail radio sales business in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In early September 1941, he was stricken with pneumonia and was taken from his home to the hospital. A few days after his admittance doctors thought he was getting better, but kidney complications had developed. He passed away about a week later on September 18, 1941, at the St. Andrews Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from the kidney and pneumonia complications at the age of 41. His funeral was held at the Albinson Funeral Home and he was laid to rest in the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His only daughter, Nancy Carolyn Johnson, died in 1945 at the age of six following an operation to have her tonsils removed. His wife Florentine Roche Johnson passed away in 1982. He was a longtime member of the American Legion and the Knights of Pythias and Fraternal Order of Eagles.