Information taken from Denmark parish records, Censuses, L.D.S. Scandinavian and Danish Mission records, Ship records and Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel records Some of the histories were obtained from Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum.
Robert Johnson's birth name is Rasmus Jogensen. He was
born on 16 Feb 1842 at Dalby, Kirke-Helsinge, Holbaek, Denmark and christened 22 May 1842 in the Kirke-Helsinge parish. His father, Jorgen Rasmusen, was christened 15 May 1815 at Kirke-Helsinge parish. His mother, Lisbeth Pedersdatter, was born 21 Aug 1815 at Herslov, Finderup, Holbaek, Denmark. His parents were married 18 Jun 1841 at Gorlev, Bakkendrup, Holbaek, Denmark.
When Rasmus was seven months old, his father died on 14 Sep 1842. Rasmus went with his mother to live with her mother and step father, Ane Christiansdatter and Peder Hansen. They lived at Herslov, Finderup,Holbaek, Denmark.
Lisbeth married Christian Olsen on 29 Jul 1848. Rasmus was six years old at that time. They had five children born in Denmark.Jorgen was born 3 Jun 1848, Niels Peder was born 11 May 1850, Ane Kirstine was born 21 Aug 1852, Jorgen Peder was born 14 Jan 1855 and Ellen Marie was born 12 Jul 1857.
Sorrow came to the family when their son, Jorgen, age 6 died 20 Mar 1854. Two days later their little son, Niels Peder, age 4 died on 22 Mar 1854.
Christian Olsen, Lisbeth Pedersdatter Olsen and Rasmus Jorgensen were baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 25 May 1858 and confirmed on 27 May 1858.
The family left to go to America on the ship William Tapscott on 11 Apr 1859. They arrived in New York, New York on 13 May 1859. The three little children Ane Kirstine, Jorgen Peder and Ellen Marie were ill so they were taken to a hospital. Christian and Rasmus got work to earn money to continue their journey to Utah. When they went to the hospital for the children, they were told that all three children had died. They could not find out what became of their bodies. What a tragedy this was for Rasmus and his parents.
They went on to Iowa City, Iowa where they were blessed with a baby girl on 3 Mar 1860. They named her Mary. Rasmus was eighteen years old whan his only living sibling was born. Mary was only four months old when the family joined the Joseph W. Young Freight Train. They departed from Florence, Nebraska on 23 Jul and arrived in Salt Lake Valley 3 Oct 1860.
From the history of Sophia Jensen Johnson
"They started across the plains with the rest of the Saints pulling the handcart. After a long and tiresome journey they arrived in Big Cottonwood where my husband's people made their home."
Robert was a team master in 1862 when he met Sophia Jensen at Fort Bridger, Wyoming. Sophia's says, "When I was nearing 18 years old, the handsome young man who smiled at me so sweetly when I arrived in Fort Bridger, began courting me. Two months later we were married. Our wedding day was Dec. 9, 1862. My husband often told me that he fell in love with me the first day he met me."
Robert and Sophia had thirteen children. Their little girl, Caroline, died as a small child. They raised the rest of their children to manhood and womanhood.
A Brief History of the Life of Robert Johnson
Written by his daughter Mettie Eliza Johnson McMurtery
Having written a little of Mother's life, I felt I should write what little I know of my father's life. Mother having told all she knew of his early life up to the time of their their marriage. For a while they lived in Big Cottonwood where five of their children were born. ( Insert by Alta Stoker--The history of Sophia Jensen Johnson says that three of their children were born in Big Cottonwood.) While living there Father took a job logging for a sawmill, hired twelve men to help. Mother went along to cook. Mother's sister, Aunt Ann, went along to help Mother, she was single at the time. Mother had two children at that time, Mary and Erastus. Mary was two years old and Erastus was a small baby. While Mother was busy she would sit with little Mary to rock the baby to sleep. Mother said she would rock the baby and sing Bom-Bom-Bom, a Danish lullaby her Grandmother Jensen had taught her.
One of the men Father hired was James W. Tidd. While working there he and Aunt Ann fell in love. After work he came in to visit a while. Uncle would sit down and Aunt Ann would sit on his lap, little Mary would point her finger at them and say, See a Beka-toe, meaning see them two. She talked the Danish language when she was a little girl.
Father worked some years wherever he could find work to provide for his growing family. Two different times he found and took up claims, but could find no one who was willing to stake him while he worked them, and had to sell for what he could get. Once he was paid six hundred dollars for one claim. Mother said at that time everything was very high, a spool of thread cost sixty cents and muslin two dollars per yard. So with a growing family to be fed and clothed it didn't last very long. One mine Father sold ran for many years.
After some years a bunch of Saints were called to go to southern Utah to make homes. Father went with and took up 160 acres of good farm ground at Joseph City, Utah. He raised one crop and was called to join the United Order. On that homestead the twins were born. Mother said when it was time to take the twins for their names and blessing Father had no Sunday pants, so she took two seamless sacks and made him a pair of trousers. She only had one shawl, so she wrapped one baby in a red table cloth. She carried one baby and Father carried the other one. She said Father was a proud man as ever walked, dressed in his seamless sack trousers carrying his little twin sons to church.
Brother Hyrum said he was sure he was the baby wrapped in the red table cloth. I could never be such a teeny man as brother Joe. Although the men that Brigham Young put in charge of the United Order knew that Father's home was not proved on. He was asked to join, Father feeling it was his duty to obey those in authority over him, left his home and went with a lot of others. In time, Brigham Young could see the men he trusted were filling their pockets from hard workers earnings. He discontinued the Order. He said God never meant for the United Order to be profit making, but to draw men closer together and he could see his people were not ready for that yet.
When Father returned with his family his home had been jumped. Mother's parents had taken up half of the city block in Monroe. They gave half of it to Mother, There Father built a little home where Mother lived and died. Although Father was left with his two naked hands to provide for his family, He still had his strong testimony to the gospel. As he had to get work wherever he could find it. He was often away from his home which left a lot of the care of the growing family to Mother.
In those days the people of Monroe got their water from a large creek that flowed from the main canyon. A few miles from town there was an irrigating ditch that ran down each block, then each man had a few hours each week to water their orchard and garden. Some of the men took up a piece of the hillside and had tunnels dug back in the hillside until they struck water. This water run into the main creek, this gave the men that owned the tunnel the right to use the water any time they wanted. Father got the job digging these tunnels. He would walk to his work Monday morning, work all week,walk home Saturday afternoon, take a bath, change to clean clothes, go to Sunday School and Sacrament meeting then walk back to work Sunday afternoon. I don't remember how long this lasted.
Finally he again decided to try to find a place where he could make a home for his family. He and a friend hearing about the Boulder country being open for settlers, went there. Father again took up 160 acres of land with a fine spring of water on it, and built a cabin. There was no settlement near this place but it is now Boulder City. After giving birth to thirteen children through hardship privation, poor Mother's health was gone. She lay in bed many months at a time. She would not dare to go so far away where there was no help near. She suffered with Gall trouble for years Which finally turned to cancer, and after many years lost her life.
The children were beginning to marry and settle down in homes of their own. Mother depended for help from her girls. So again poor Father had to swallow his disappointment and go back to hard drudgery of making a living. After first coming to their new home, Monroe, at odd times he planted a little orchard of plum and apple trees.and also shade trees around the yard. And several locust trees which filled the summer air with their lovely fragrance. He worked sometimes in the lime hills. At sheep dipping time he boiled the dip for the sheep men to dip their sheep in after shearing. He worked sometime in the fall of the threshing machine many long hours, early and late.
Sometime after brother Hyrum and Louise were married, Father tried once again to make a trip to the Boulder country. Louise's husband , Jim McMurtery, had always raised a few head of cattle and was anxious to find a place where he could go into the cattle business. So Father with Hyrum and Hyrum's brother-in-law, Hyrum Christensen started again for Boulder. As they would be passing through game country they took their guns. Jim brought his reloading outfit. After supper Jim decided to reload a few shells, Father warned him it would be dangerous to do such work around an open campfire, but Jim only laughed, putting his open gun powder between his knees sitting not far from the brightly burning campfire. He got ready to work, but a spark from the campfire flew into the open powder sack. It exploded on Jim's hand and into his face burning him severely. He suffered very much laying with his burned hands in the snow. A light skiff had fallen that night. They came home the next day, one more disappointment for poor Father. A doctor was called in to look after Jim,s burns. You couldn't tell him from a Negro. The gun powder had embedded in his flesh. He lay in bed for many days, his face and hands had to be covered with ointment every hour night and day until it was healed. It was quite sometime before he washed his face and hands again. Father went to work as usual wherever he could find work.
Before going any farther with my story I will write what brother Hyrum contributed about his trip with Father when he was a young boy. When I was a young boy, twelve yeas old, Father and I went east down the Dirty Devil River to Hanksville. Then from there east to a cattle ranch or you might say cattle range, a place called Robbers Roost. We worked all summer cleaning out springs, putting in watering troughs, built a cabin and corral all out of cedar posts, The posts were set in the ground on end and bound together with rawhide. In the fall I wrangled horses. While the cow punchers gathered cattle to take them to winter range on the Dirty Devil River. I don't know how much cash Father got but he took four cows on our work. I rode an old white mule bare back and drove the cows home. While we were out at the Roost, they sent me to Black City after mail, a distance of about 75 miles. I got lost, and and was lost three days. When night came I would take the saddle off my horse, tie an end of the lariat on the saddle so he wouldn't get away from me. Roll up with the saddle blanket for the night.
I want to contribute much more to what brother Hyrum has told. I can remember them telling of the cattle going on a rampage. Father and Hyrum had to climb a tree and spend the day in the tree until evening when the cattle grew tired and wandered off. Now back to my story. At one time Father took a job of sheep herding among the lower ranges and foot hills. He took very ill while at work with a very high fever, He went delirious and was found wandering in the foot hills, thinking, I guess, he was hunting for lost sheep. He was very ill for many days.
I wish I were able to give the dates of these happenings in Father's life, but I am not able to do so. At one time he and Mother decided to make a trip back to Big Cottonwood thinking it might do Mother some good to make a sort of pleasure trip out of it.
They went by team and covered wagon taking three of us children with them also one sister, Sarah, whom was a young lady living with Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim Tidd, where she had lived since she was seven years old. Aunt Ann never had any children. When Sarah was seven years old, Father got a job away from home and was taking Mother with him. Aunt Ann was heart broken, and she said, "What will I do you are taking all the children with you. I'll be so lonely." Mother said, "Well I guess Sarah can stay with you until we get back." Sarah never came home anymore. Aunt and Uncle had got so use to her they could not give her up. So, Mother and Father let them keep her. Mother said often at night her pillow was wet from letting her little girl go.
Now back to my story, we had a very enjoyable trip. Mother had a sister, Aunt Mary Andersen, living in Big Cottonwood and Father's sister, Aunt Mary Lark, living in Little Cottonwood. So we had a pleasant time visiting back and forth. Sarah had never met her cousins. There were two girls, Mary and Annie, around Sarah's age, they had a wonderful time. We returned home after a long visit. We enjoyed the trip very much cooking on a camp fire and sleeping under the stars. The weather was pleasant going and returning. I'm sure Mother was helped by the trip. Time went on about as before, Father working wherever he could find work, Herding sheep part of the time.
After I was married,Tony, my husband, Jim McMurtrey, his brother and Father decided to go up near Salt Lake to find work in the smelters. Jim didn't care about smelter work, and got a job herding sheep. Father and Tony went to work in the smelters. They boarded with Aunt Mary Lark, and drove back and forth to work. After a while Tony sent for me to come up and be with him. Later on Father sent for Mother. We moved closer to the work where the men could walk back and forth. We stayed until fall then went back to Monroe. A short time after this, a bunch of men from Monroe went to Big Horn, Wyoming, and Father and Jim going with them, also brother Joe. Part of them took homes, or that is city lots, in Lovell, Wyoming. But Jim took up a homestead on the river between the Big Horn and the Shoshone River. It was covered with cottonwood trees, there was no cleared land on it. There was no farming land to be had. It had all been taken before we got there. Again Father hired out to work wherever a man was needed. He worked for some time in Wyoming mountains at a sawmill as engineer. After some time Tony and I with Tony's sister, Bertie, and husband went on to the Big Horn, It was late when we got there. Jim and Louise were living in a tent on a Mr. Boggs place. Father was at the saw mill at this time, but came home when he heard we had arrived. He and Tony started at once to build on Jim's homestead. Tony cut down the timber and drug it to the home site. They soon had two rooms built. We all moved in for the winter, Bertie and John included. Mr. Boggs had land he wanted cleared, so they all went to work. It was a hard job. The land was covered with wild rose bushes, Father's shoes were the worst for wear. And after getting in bed at night he would call me to take his pocket knife and scrape the rose briers from the bottom of his feet.
Sometime before he went back to Utah, he and Tony got a job in a coal mine, owned by Ira Waters. He had to work out so much each year to hold his clam. He owned a store in Lovell. It was in the winter and very cold. Father dug out the coal and Tony hauled it across the flat to Waters Store. It was a long cold trip.
There were plenty of cotton tail. It was warm in the tunnel, Father would have a warm fire going and they would soon have a pan of rabbits on to fry. Ira Waters had no ready cash to spare so Father and Tony had to take their wages in store pay. I don't know exactly how long it was after the last work, that we received a letter from home telling of brother Erastus serious accident he received while logging. Father was asked to return home as brother Erastus wasn't expected to live. When I read the letter to him he said, "Oh, do I have to go back to that place where I have suffered so much." I think that was the only complaint anyone ever heard from him. Times were hard and none had any ready money. There was a man by the name Charley Moore who had come from Utah, bought a place down on the river, brought with him quite a herd of cattle. It not being much of a cattle country, he decided to go back to Utah, and was shipping his cattle. Father told him of his trouble, he told him he could ride the cattle car, so he went riding with the cattle. Mr. Moore brought his meals to him. I suppose Father had a few dollars in his pocket, enough to buy food. I don't remember how near home or Monroe Mr. Moore went with his cattle, at any rate Father arrived safely. Brother Rast was in serious condition. Father went every morning and rubbed his legs trying to bring life back into them, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. He lived many years but was always crippled.
Father went back to work of making a living, did a lot of sheep herding again. After sometime we left Big Horn and worked for some time where ditches were being taken out from the river on to new land. When that work was finished we heard of a new project at Burley, Idaho. We landed at Annis the 29th of August in 1908 got work for farmers and stayed. Not long after this Father came. After sometime he took up a 160 acre dry farm in the foot hills above Antelope. For a time Louise and Jim lived with him. Then Jim took up a 40 acre homestead on Antelope and had to move on his own land. Father getting too old to live by himself, and went to live with him. He was hoping one of his boys, either John or Andrew, would come and live on his place, but they didn't seem to care anything about dry farming in Idaho.
Wiley Mc Murtery, Jim and Tony's brother had a dry farm joining Father's place, and Father wasn't living there any more knew that it was ready to be jumped. Wiley"s stepson, Ernest Adamson was living with Wiley at the time. They planned to go down and jump Father's land. Wiley's son, Emeral, heard them talk it over. Father was living with us in Anne's at the time. Emeral rode down and told Father and Tony what they intended to do. This was the middle of the week, they were going to the land office the next Monday. Father said, "we'll fool them.Tony. Take me down and I'll turn it over to you." Father stayed with us part of the time, and with Jim and Louise part of the time. After Tony quit renting we moved to the dry farm for good. Moving down on Antelope in the winter, to send the children to school. Father would stay with us part of the time and with Jim and Louise part of the time. Father stayed with us part of the time when we lived in Antelope. He would go back to Louise's when we moved back in the spring. He did little odd jobs around, when there was any to do. One winter he cleaned the school house, two rooms and a hallway. He would get up early in the mornings and build the fires in the two heaters. He never missed church, when the people going to church would see Father coming over the hill to the church house they would say, "Here comes old faithful." He was never late.
He made two trips to Salt Lake after coming to Idaho. One trip the man that bought his step father's home was having trouble with the water right and called Father to come down and help straighten it out. He paid his fare down there and back and paid wages. Father testified that the home had a clear water right. He was able to buy himself a new suit for which he very badly in need. He had a nice visit with Sarah and her family while he was there.
His second trip to Salt Lake was a call from Mother to meet her there and help her with some temple work that had not been finished.
When he stayed with us at Annie's he used to visit with an old Danish couple by the name of Olsen. Father used to like to spend the afternoon and talk Danish. Mrs. Olsen served him with cake and coffee.
The winters on the dry farm were very hard. Father took several bad sick spells. Louise always called for me to be with her and help while he was ill. He was always very active. It was hard for him to be shut up and couldn't take his walk. In March 1924 he took very ill again. Louise called me to his bedside, she was ill at the time. I stayed and took care of him, getting him up the second day to change his bed, he became very ill. My son Mac was there. He help me get him back to bed. I sent Mac for the Bishop. He and his two counselors came.
Father's one arm and lay limp at his side. Brother Johnson told me to lift his arm and lay it across him, but he just let it lay. He said Father had a stroke. He lived only a few days and passed quietly away on March 28, 1924. We were having the worst kind of weather. The men tried to dig his grave on a Saturday before his burial, but the blizzard was so bad they had to finish it Sunday morning. As bad as the day was there was 200 people people to his funeral. He was loved by everybody that knew him. In Bishop Clifford's talk he said Brother Johnson was a man of few words, but those words counted. He was laid to rest on a hillside. A little ways from Jim and Louise's home. They built a nice fence around the plot and planted lawn grass. To his right a little grandson lies. Tony's and my baby, a month old. And this side a few feet a little great grandson, Jay and Annie's baby, a few hours old. Jay is Jim and Louise's oldest boy. Just a short time before Father passed away we had a cottage meeting at Louise's home. A Brother Browning was conducting the meeting. He asked Father to talk. Father said, "I never was much of a preacher." He bore a strong testimony to the Gospel and said, "I am ready to go as soon as the Lord is ready to take me. The Lord took him in less than a month.
THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT MY FATHER, ROBERT JOHNSON
BY HYRUM JOHNSON
Will jot down a few things I can remember about Father. The first was when I was a small child. We lived in a dugout near the Deertrail Mine In Piute County, Utah where Father worked. I remember getting on top of the dugout and trying to imitate the drunken miners for which I got a good paddling.
We moved back to Monroe. I don't remember much of what happened there for a few years. Next, I remember was living near the sloughs north of Anabella. What we were there for I don't know, but it was something to do with the United Orders. Father had a bunch of bucks belonging to Morse Magleby to care for. Brother Robert herded them barefooted. We must have been very poor. I remember Mother making cakes or whatever you might call them out of bran for us kids to eat. You can imagine about what they would be like. Father walked to Monroe and got 50 pounds of flour and packed it back a distance of almost ten miles.
We moved to Dry Creek Canyon, this came under the heading of the United Orders again.
Father operated the saw mill, it was run by water power and the saw was about ten feet long and ran up and down through the log. It was a slow process. They had a mill pond and had to wait for it to fill up to have power enough to run the saw as the stream was very small.
I don't remember much of what happened for the next few years. I remember our trip down the Dirty Devil River, and you know about that one summer we burned lime in a kiln south of Monkey Town. We worked one summer at Marysvale. burning charcoal. It was used in a assay office.
From there we went up the canyon and made timbers for the Bully Boy and Webster Mines. We then ran a shingle mill. I did the logging. I would go up the mountain with two old mules, cut the logs, put two logs to a mule and take them to the mill. Father made the shingles, later on he rented the Liscombe farm for the summer. I got the chills and fever and was laid up most of the summer. In the fall, I had my first wrangle with Father. He had traded the old mules for a span of old crow bait horses. He told me to go to Elsinore to the mill for pig feed and I told him to go after his own pig feed. Aunt Mary Anderson was there on a visit. She and Mother talked me into the notion of going. They went with me to make sure I made the trip.
Father went out his ranch in Nevada. He worked on the Big Springs Ranch all winter. In the spring, I put in Mr. Collings crop then went to his ranch in Nevada. We worked there all summer. Mr. Collings couldn't pay us very much of what he owed us, so we quit and came home. Later in the summer, Charles Moser and I made a trip to Boulder and did some work on a ditch to a piece of land. We came home for supplies in the fall. Father, Jim and Tony and I started back, that's when Jim got burned and that ended that trip.
We moved back to town in the winter. I hired out and went to live with William Collings and his family for my board and went to school.
In the spring, Father worked for the Monkey Town farmers. tunneling in the mountains for water. He struck a nice little stream in one place. While he worked out there, I used to take out his groceries. He had a skunk for a pet and sometimes a big blow snake. He didn't want anyone to bother them. If they got in his way, he just pushed them out of his way with a broom. He was always kind to animals of all kinds.
After he came to Idaho you know all about him.
Robert Johnson's birth name is Rasmus Jogensen. He was
born on 16 Feb 1842 at Dalby, Kirke-Helsinge, Holbaek, Denmark and christened 22 May 1842 in the Kirke-Helsinge parish. His father, Jorgen Rasmusen, was christened 15 May 1815 at Kirke-Helsinge parish. His mother, Lisbeth Pedersdatter, was born 21 Aug 1815 at Herslov, Finderup, Holbaek, Denmark. His parents were married 18 Jun 1841 at Gorlev, Bakkendrup, Holbaek, Denmark.
When Rasmus was seven months old, his father died on 14 Sep 1842. Rasmus went with his mother to live with her mother and step father, Ane Christiansdatter and Peder Hansen. They lived at Herslov, Finderup,Holbaek, Denmark.
Lisbeth married Christian Olsen on 29 Jul 1848. Rasmus was six years old at that time. They had five children born in Denmark.Jorgen was born 3 Jun 1848, Niels Peder was born 11 May 1850, Ane Kirstine was born 21 Aug 1852, Jorgen Peder was born 14 Jan 1855 and Ellen Marie was born 12 Jul 1857.
Sorrow came to the family when their son, Jorgen, age 6 died 20 Mar 1854. Two days later their little son, Niels Peder, age 4 died on 22 Mar 1854.
Christian Olsen, Lisbeth Pedersdatter Olsen and Rasmus Jorgensen were baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 25 May 1858 and confirmed on 27 May 1858.
The family left to go to America on the ship William Tapscott on 11 Apr 1859. They arrived in New York, New York on 13 May 1859. The three little children Ane Kirstine, Jorgen Peder and Ellen Marie were ill so they were taken to a hospital. Christian and Rasmus got work to earn money to continue their journey to Utah. When they went to the hospital for the children, they were told that all three children had died. They could not find out what became of their bodies. What a tragedy this was for Rasmus and his parents.
They went on to Iowa City, Iowa where they were blessed with a baby girl on 3 Mar 1860. They named her Mary. Rasmus was eighteen years old whan his only living sibling was born. Mary was only four months old when the family joined the Joseph W. Young Freight Train. They departed from Florence, Nebraska on 23 Jul and arrived in Salt Lake Valley 3 Oct 1860.
From the history of Sophia Jensen Johnson
"They started across the plains with the rest of the Saints pulling the handcart. After a long and tiresome journey they arrived in Big Cottonwood where my husband's people made their home."
Robert was a team master in 1862 when he met Sophia Jensen at Fort Bridger, Wyoming. Sophia's says, "When I was nearing 18 years old, the handsome young man who smiled at me so sweetly when I arrived in Fort Bridger, began courting me. Two months later we were married. Our wedding day was Dec. 9, 1862. My husband often told me that he fell in love with me the first day he met me."
Robert and Sophia had thirteen children. Their little girl, Caroline, died as a small child. They raised the rest of their children to manhood and womanhood.
A Brief History of the Life of Robert Johnson
Written by his daughter Mettie Eliza Johnson McMurtery
Having written a little of Mother's life, I felt I should write what little I know of my father's life. Mother having told all she knew of his early life up to the time of their their marriage. For a while they lived in Big Cottonwood where five of their children were born. ( Insert by Alta Stoker--The history of Sophia Jensen Johnson says that three of their children were born in Big Cottonwood.) While living there Father took a job logging for a sawmill, hired twelve men to help. Mother went along to cook. Mother's sister, Aunt Ann, went along to help Mother, she was single at the time. Mother had two children at that time, Mary and Erastus. Mary was two years old and Erastus was a small baby. While Mother was busy she would sit with little Mary to rock the baby to sleep. Mother said she would rock the baby and sing Bom-Bom-Bom, a Danish lullaby her Grandmother Jensen had taught her.
One of the men Father hired was James W. Tidd. While working there he and Aunt Ann fell in love. After work he came in to visit a while. Uncle would sit down and Aunt Ann would sit on his lap, little Mary would point her finger at them and say, See a Beka-toe, meaning see them two. She talked the Danish language when she was a little girl.
Father worked some years wherever he could find work to provide for his growing family. Two different times he found and took up claims, but could find no one who was willing to stake him while he worked them, and had to sell for what he could get. Once he was paid six hundred dollars for one claim. Mother said at that time everything was very high, a spool of thread cost sixty cents and muslin two dollars per yard. So with a growing family to be fed and clothed it didn't last very long. One mine Father sold ran for many years.
After some years a bunch of Saints were called to go to southern Utah to make homes. Father went with and took up 160 acres of good farm ground at Joseph City, Utah. He raised one crop and was called to join the United Order. On that homestead the twins were born. Mother said when it was time to take the twins for their names and blessing Father had no Sunday pants, so she took two seamless sacks and made him a pair of trousers. She only had one shawl, so she wrapped one baby in a red table cloth. She carried one baby and Father carried the other one. She said Father was a proud man as ever walked, dressed in his seamless sack trousers carrying his little twin sons to church.
Brother Hyrum said he was sure he was the baby wrapped in the red table cloth. I could never be such a teeny man as brother Joe. Although the men that Brigham Young put in charge of the United Order knew that Father's home was not proved on. He was asked to join, Father feeling it was his duty to obey those in authority over him, left his home and went with a lot of others. In time, Brigham Young could see the men he trusted were filling their pockets from hard workers earnings. He discontinued the Order. He said God never meant for the United Order to be profit making, but to draw men closer together and he could see his people were not ready for that yet.
When Father returned with his family his home had been jumped. Mother's parents had taken up half of the city block in Monroe. They gave half of it to Mother, There Father built a little home where Mother lived and died. Although Father was left with his two naked hands to provide for his family, He still had his strong testimony to the gospel. As he had to get work wherever he could find it. He was often away from his home which left a lot of the care of the growing family to Mother.
In those days the people of Monroe got their water from a large creek that flowed from the main canyon. A few miles from town there was an irrigating ditch that ran down each block, then each man had a few hours each week to water their orchard and garden. Some of the men took up a piece of the hillside and had tunnels dug back in the hillside until they struck water. This water run into the main creek, this gave the men that owned the tunnel the right to use the water any time they wanted. Father got the job digging these tunnels. He would walk to his work Monday morning, work all week,walk home Saturday afternoon, take a bath, change to clean clothes, go to Sunday School and Sacrament meeting then walk back to work Sunday afternoon. I don't remember how long this lasted.
Finally he again decided to try to find a place where he could make a home for his family. He and a friend hearing about the Boulder country being open for settlers, went there. Father again took up 160 acres of land with a fine spring of water on it, and built a cabin. There was no settlement near this place but it is now Boulder City. After giving birth to thirteen children through hardship privation, poor Mother's health was gone. She lay in bed many months at a time. She would not dare to go so far away where there was no help near. She suffered with Gall trouble for years Which finally turned to cancer, and after many years lost her life.
The children were beginning to marry and settle down in homes of their own. Mother depended for help from her girls. So again poor Father had to swallow his disappointment and go back to hard drudgery of making a living. After first coming to their new home, Monroe, at odd times he planted a little orchard of plum and apple trees.and also shade trees around the yard. And several locust trees which filled the summer air with their lovely fragrance. He worked sometimes in the lime hills. At sheep dipping time he boiled the dip for the sheep men to dip their sheep in after shearing. He worked sometime in the fall of the threshing machine many long hours, early and late.
Sometime after brother Hyrum and Louise were married, Father tried once again to make a trip to the Boulder country. Louise's husband , Jim McMurtery, had always raised a few head of cattle and was anxious to find a place where he could go into the cattle business. So Father with Hyrum and Hyrum's brother-in-law, Hyrum Christensen started again for Boulder. As they would be passing through game country they took their guns. Jim brought his reloading outfit. After supper Jim decided to reload a few shells, Father warned him it would be dangerous to do such work around an open campfire, but Jim only laughed, putting his open gun powder between his knees sitting not far from the brightly burning campfire. He got ready to work, but a spark from the campfire flew into the open powder sack. It exploded on Jim's hand and into his face burning him severely. He suffered very much laying with his burned hands in the snow. A light skiff had fallen that night. They came home the next day, one more disappointment for poor Father. A doctor was called in to look after Jim,s burns. You couldn't tell him from a Negro. The gun powder had embedded in his flesh. He lay in bed for many days, his face and hands had to be covered with ointment every hour night and day until it was healed. It was quite sometime before he washed his face and hands again. Father went to work as usual wherever he could find work.
Before going any farther with my story I will write what brother Hyrum contributed about his trip with Father when he was a young boy. When I was a young boy, twelve yeas old, Father and I went east down the Dirty Devil River to Hanksville. Then from there east to a cattle ranch or you might say cattle range, a place called Robbers Roost. We worked all summer cleaning out springs, putting in watering troughs, built a cabin and corral all out of cedar posts, The posts were set in the ground on end and bound together with rawhide. In the fall I wrangled horses. While the cow punchers gathered cattle to take them to winter range on the Dirty Devil River. I don't know how much cash Father got but he took four cows on our work. I rode an old white mule bare back and drove the cows home. While we were out at the Roost, they sent me to Black City after mail, a distance of about 75 miles. I got lost, and and was lost three days. When night came I would take the saddle off my horse, tie an end of the lariat on the saddle so he wouldn't get away from me. Roll up with the saddle blanket for the night.
I want to contribute much more to what brother Hyrum has told. I can remember them telling of the cattle going on a rampage. Father and Hyrum had to climb a tree and spend the day in the tree until evening when the cattle grew tired and wandered off. Now back to my story. At one time Father took a job of sheep herding among the lower ranges and foot hills. He took very ill while at work with a very high fever, He went delirious and was found wandering in the foot hills, thinking, I guess, he was hunting for lost sheep. He was very ill for many days.
I wish I were able to give the dates of these happenings in Father's life, but I am not able to do so. At one time he and Mother decided to make a trip back to Big Cottonwood thinking it might do Mother some good to make a sort of pleasure trip out of it.
They went by team and covered wagon taking three of us children with them also one sister, Sarah, whom was a young lady living with Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim Tidd, where she had lived since she was seven years old. Aunt Ann never had any children. When Sarah was seven years old, Father got a job away from home and was taking Mother with him. Aunt Ann was heart broken, and she said, "What will I do you are taking all the children with you. I'll be so lonely." Mother said, "Well I guess Sarah can stay with you until we get back." Sarah never came home anymore. Aunt and Uncle had got so use to her they could not give her up. So, Mother and Father let them keep her. Mother said often at night her pillow was wet from letting her little girl go.
Now back to my story, we had a very enjoyable trip. Mother had a sister, Aunt Mary Andersen, living in Big Cottonwood and Father's sister, Aunt Mary Lark, living in Little Cottonwood. So we had a pleasant time visiting back and forth. Sarah had never met her cousins. There were two girls, Mary and Annie, around Sarah's age, they had a wonderful time. We returned home after a long visit. We enjoyed the trip very much cooking on a camp fire and sleeping under the stars. The weather was pleasant going and returning. I'm sure Mother was helped by the trip. Time went on about as before, Father working wherever he could find work, Herding sheep part of the time.
After I was married,Tony, my husband, Jim McMurtrey, his brother and Father decided to go up near Salt Lake to find work in the smelters. Jim didn't care about smelter work, and got a job herding sheep. Father and Tony went to work in the smelters. They boarded with Aunt Mary Lark, and drove back and forth to work. After a while Tony sent for me to come up and be with him. Later on Father sent for Mother. We moved closer to the work where the men could walk back and forth. We stayed until fall then went back to Monroe. A short time after this, a bunch of men from Monroe went to Big Horn, Wyoming, and Father and Jim going with them, also brother Joe. Part of them took homes, or that is city lots, in Lovell, Wyoming. But Jim took up a homestead on the river between the Big Horn and the Shoshone River. It was covered with cottonwood trees, there was no cleared land on it. There was no farming land to be had. It had all been taken before we got there. Again Father hired out to work wherever a man was needed. He worked for some time in Wyoming mountains at a sawmill as engineer. After some time Tony and I with Tony's sister, Bertie, and husband went on to the Big Horn, It was late when we got there. Jim and Louise were living in a tent on a Mr. Boggs place. Father was at the saw mill at this time, but came home when he heard we had arrived. He and Tony started at once to build on Jim's homestead. Tony cut down the timber and drug it to the home site. They soon had two rooms built. We all moved in for the winter, Bertie and John included. Mr. Boggs had land he wanted cleared, so they all went to work. It was a hard job. The land was covered with wild rose bushes, Father's shoes were the worst for wear. And after getting in bed at night he would call me to take his pocket knife and scrape the rose briers from the bottom of his feet.
Sometime before he went back to Utah, he and Tony got a job in a coal mine, owned by Ira Waters. He had to work out so much each year to hold his clam. He owned a store in Lovell. It was in the winter and very cold. Father dug out the coal and Tony hauled it across the flat to Waters Store. It was a long cold trip.
There were plenty of cotton tail. It was warm in the tunnel, Father would have a warm fire going and they would soon have a pan of rabbits on to fry. Ira Waters had no ready cash to spare so Father and Tony had to take their wages in store pay. I don't know exactly how long it was after the last work, that we received a letter from home telling of brother Erastus serious accident he received while logging. Father was asked to return home as brother Erastus wasn't expected to live. When I read the letter to him he said, "Oh, do I have to go back to that place where I have suffered so much." I think that was the only complaint anyone ever heard from him. Times were hard and none had any ready money. There was a man by the name Charley Moore who had come from Utah, bought a place down on the river, brought with him quite a herd of cattle. It not being much of a cattle country, he decided to go back to Utah, and was shipping his cattle. Father told him of his trouble, he told him he could ride the cattle car, so he went riding with the cattle. Mr. Moore brought his meals to him. I suppose Father had a few dollars in his pocket, enough to buy food. I don't remember how near home or Monroe Mr. Moore went with his cattle, at any rate Father arrived safely. Brother Rast was in serious condition. Father went every morning and rubbed his legs trying to bring life back into them, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. He lived many years but was always crippled.
Father went back to work of making a living, did a lot of sheep herding again. After sometime we left Big Horn and worked for some time where ditches were being taken out from the river on to new land. When that work was finished we heard of a new project at Burley, Idaho. We landed at Annis the 29th of August in 1908 got work for farmers and stayed. Not long after this Father came. After sometime he took up a 160 acre dry farm in the foot hills above Antelope. For a time Louise and Jim lived with him. Then Jim took up a 40 acre homestead on Antelope and had to move on his own land. Father getting too old to live by himself, and went to live with him. He was hoping one of his boys, either John or Andrew, would come and live on his place, but they didn't seem to care anything about dry farming in Idaho.
Wiley Mc Murtery, Jim and Tony's brother had a dry farm joining Father's place, and Father wasn't living there any more knew that it was ready to be jumped. Wiley"s stepson, Ernest Adamson was living with Wiley at the time. They planned to go down and jump Father's land. Wiley's son, Emeral, heard them talk it over. Father was living with us in Anne's at the time. Emeral rode down and told Father and Tony what they intended to do. This was the middle of the week, they were going to the land office the next Monday. Father said, "we'll fool them.Tony. Take me down and I'll turn it over to you." Father stayed with us part of the time, and with Jim and Louise part of the time. After Tony quit renting we moved to the dry farm for good. Moving down on Antelope in the winter, to send the children to school. Father would stay with us part of the time and with Jim and Louise part of the time. Father stayed with us part of the time when we lived in Antelope. He would go back to Louise's when we moved back in the spring. He did little odd jobs around, when there was any to do. One winter he cleaned the school house, two rooms and a hallway. He would get up early in the mornings and build the fires in the two heaters. He never missed church, when the people going to church would see Father coming over the hill to the church house they would say, "Here comes old faithful." He was never late.
He made two trips to Salt Lake after coming to Idaho. One trip the man that bought his step father's home was having trouble with the water right and called Father to come down and help straighten it out. He paid his fare down there and back and paid wages. Father testified that the home had a clear water right. He was able to buy himself a new suit for which he very badly in need. He had a nice visit with Sarah and her family while he was there.
His second trip to Salt Lake was a call from Mother to meet her there and help her with some temple work that had not been finished.
When he stayed with us at Annie's he used to visit with an old Danish couple by the name of Olsen. Father used to like to spend the afternoon and talk Danish. Mrs. Olsen served him with cake and coffee.
The winters on the dry farm were very hard. Father took several bad sick spells. Louise always called for me to be with her and help while he was ill. He was always very active. It was hard for him to be shut up and couldn't take his walk. In March 1924 he took very ill again. Louise called me to his bedside, she was ill at the time. I stayed and took care of him, getting him up the second day to change his bed, he became very ill. My son Mac was there. He help me get him back to bed. I sent Mac for the Bishop. He and his two counselors came.
Father's one arm and lay limp at his side. Brother Johnson told me to lift his arm and lay it across him, but he just let it lay. He said Father had a stroke. He lived only a few days and passed quietly away on March 28, 1924. We were having the worst kind of weather. The men tried to dig his grave on a Saturday before his burial, but the blizzard was so bad they had to finish it Sunday morning. As bad as the day was there was 200 people people to his funeral. He was loved by everybody that knew him. In Bishop Clifford's talk he said Brother Johnson was a man of few words, but those words counted. He was laid to rest on a hillside. A little ways from Jim and Louise's home. They built a nice fence around the plot and planted lawn grass. To his right a little grandson lies. Tony's and my baby, a month old. And this side a few feet a little great grandson, Jay and Annie's baby, a few hours old. Jay is Jim and Louise's oldest boy. Just a short time before Father passed away we had a cottage meeting at Louise's home. A Brother Browning was conducting the meeting. He asked Father to talk. Father said, "I never was much of a preacher." He bore a strong testimony to the Gospel and said, "I am ready to go as soon as the Lord is ready to take me. The Lord took him in less than a month.
THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT MY FATHER, ROBERT JOHNSON
BY HYRUM JOHNSON
Will jot down a few things I can remember about Father. The first was when I was a small child. We lived in a dugout near the Deertrail Mine In Piute County, Utah where Father worked. I remember getting on top of the dugout and trying to imitate the drunken miners for which I got a good paddling.
We moved back to Monroe. I don't remember much of what happened there for a few years. Next, I remember was living near the sloughs north of Anabella. What we were there for I don't know, but it was something to do with the United Orders. Father had a bunch of bucks belonging to Morse Magleby to care for. Brother Robert herded them barefooted. We must have been very poor. I remember Mother making cakes or whatever you might call them out of bran for us kids to eat. You can imagine about what they would be like. Father walked to Monroe and got 50 pounds of flour and packed it back a distance of almost ten miles.
We moved to Dry Creek Canyon, this came under the heading of the United Orders again.
Father operated the saw mill, it was run by water power and the saw was about ten feet long and ran up and down through the log. It was a slow process. They had a mill pond and had to wait for it to fill up to have power enough to run the saw as the stream was very small.
I don't remember much of what happened for the next few years. I remember our trip down the Dirty Devil River, and you know about that one summer we burned lime in a kiln south of Monkey Town. We worked one summer at Marysvale. burning charcoal. It was used in a assay office.
From there we went up the canyon and made timbers for the Bully Boy and Webster Mines. We then ran a shingle mill. I did the logging. I would go up the mountain with two old mules, cut the logs, put two logs to a mule and take them to the mill. Father made the shingles, later on he rented the Liscombe farm for the summer. I got the chills and fever and was laid up most of the summer. In the fall, I had my first wrangle with Father. He had traded the old mules for a span of old crow bait horses. He told me to go to Elsinore to the mill for pig feed and I told him to go after his own pig feed. Aunt Mary Anderson was there on a visit. She and Mother talked me into the notion of going. They went with me to make sure I made the trip.
Father went out his ranch in Nevada. He worked on the Big Springs Ranch all winter. In the spring, I put in Mr. Collings crop then went to his ranch in Nevada. We worked there all summer. Mr. Collings couldn't pay us very much of what he owed us, so we quit and came home. Later in the summer, Charles Moser and I made a trip to Boulder and did some work on a ditch to a piece of land. We came home for supplies in the fall. Father, Jim and Tony and I started back, that's when Jim got burned and that ended that trip.
We moved back to town in the winter. I hired out and went to live with William Collings and his family for my board and went to school.
In the spring, Father worked for the Monkey Town farmers. tunneling in the mountains for water. He struck a nice little stream in one place. While he worked out there, I used to take out his groceries. He had a skunk for a pet and sometimes a big blow snake. He didn't want anyone to bother them. If they got in his way, he just pushed them out of his way with a broom. He was always kind to animals of all kinds.
After he came to Idaho you know all about him.
Information taken from Denmark parish records, Censuses, L.D.S. Scandinavian and Danish Mission records, Ship records and Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel records Some of the histories were obtained from Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum.
Robert Johnson's birth name is Rasmus Jogensen. He was
born on 16 Feb 1842 at Dalby, Kirke-Helsinge, Holbaek, Denmark and christened 22 May 1842 in the Kirke-Helsinge parish. His father, Jorgen Rasmusen, was christened 15 May 1815 at Kirke-Helsinge parish. His mother, Lisbeth Pedersdatter, was born 21 Aug 1815 at Herslov, Finderup, Holbaek, Denmark. His parents were married 18 Jun 1841 at Gorlev, Bakkendrup, Holbaek, Denmark.
When Rasmus was seven months old, his father died on 14 Sep 1842. Rasmus went with his mother to live with her mother and step father, Ane Christiansdatter and Peder Hansen. They lived at Herslov, Finderup,Holbaek, Denmark.
Lisbeth married Christian Olsen on 29 Jul 1848. Rasmus was six years old at that time. They had five children born in Denmark.Jorgen was born 3 Jun 1848, Niels Peder was born 11 May 1850, Ane Kirstine was born 21 Aug 1852, Jorgen Peder was born 14 Jan 1855 and Ellen Marie was born 12 Jul 1857.
Sorrow came to the family when their son, Jorgen, age 6 died 20 Mar 1854. Two days later their little son, Niels Peder, age 4 died on 22 Mar 1854.
Christian Olsen, Lisbeth Pedersdatter Olsen and Rasmus Jorgensen were baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 25 May 1858 and confirmed on 27 May 1858.
The family left to go to America on the ship William Tapscott on 11 Apr 1859. They arrived in New York, New York on 13 May 1859. The three little children Ane Kirstine, Jorgen Peder and Ellen Marie were ill so they were taken to a hospital. Christian and Rasmus got work to earn money to continue their journey to Utah. When they went to the hospital for the children, they were told that all three children had died. They could not find out what became of their bodies. What a tragedy this was for Rasmus and his parents.
They went on to Iowa City, Iowa where they were blessed with a baby girl on 3 Mar 1860. They named her Mary. Rasmus was eighteen years old whan his only living sibling was born. Mary was only four months old when the family joined the Joseph W. Young Freight Train. They departed from Florence, Nebraska on 23 Jul and arrived in Salt Lake Valley 3 Oct 1860.
From the history of Sophia Jensen Johnson
"They started across the plains with the rest of the Saints pulling the handcart. After a long and tiresome journey they arrived in Big Cottonwood where my husband's people made their home."
Robert was a team master in 1862 when he met Sophia Jensen at Fort Bridger, Wyoming. Sophia's says, "When I was nearing 18 years old, the handsome young man who smiled at me so sweetly when I arrived in Fort Bridger, began courting me. Two months later we were married. Our wedding day was Dec. 9, 1862. My husband often told me that he fell in love with me the first day he met me."
Robert and Sophia had thirteen children. Their little girl, Caroline, died as a small child. They raised the rest of their children to manhood and womanhood.
A Brief History of the Life of Robert Johnson
Written by his daughter Mettie Eliza Johnson McMurtery
Having written a little of Mother's life, I felt I should write what little I know of my father's life. Mother having told all she knew of his early life up to the time of their their marriage. For a while they lived in Big Cottonwood where five of their children were born. ( Insert by Alta Stoker--The history of Sophia Jensen Johnson says that three of their children were born in Big Cottonwood.) While living there Father took a job logging for a sawmill, hired twelve men to help. Mother went along to cook. Mother's sister, Aunt Ann, went along to help Mother, she was single at the time. Mother had two children at that time, Mary and Erastus. Mary was two years old and Erastus was a small baby. While Mother was busy she would sit with little Mary to rock the baby to sleep. Mother said she would rock the baby and sing Bom-Bom-Bom, a Danish lullaby her Grandmother Jensen had taught her.
One of the men Father hired was James W. Tidd. While working there he and Aunt Ann fell in love. After work he came in to visit a while. Uncle would sit down and Aunt Ann would sit on his lap, little Mary would point her finger at them and say, See a Beka-toe, meaning see them two. She talked the Danish language when she was a little girl.
Father worked some years wherever he could find work to provide for his growing family. Two different times he found and took up claims, but could find no one who was willing to stake him while he worked them, and had to sell for what he could get. Once he was paid six hundred dollars for one claim. Mother said at that time everything was very high, a spool of thread cost sixty cents and muslin two dollars per yard. So with a growing family to be fed and clothed it didn't last very long. One mine Father sold ran for many years.
After some years a bunch of Saints were called to go to southern Utah to make homes. Father went with and took up 160 acres of good farm ground at Joseph City, Utah. He raised one crop and was called to join the United Order. On that homestead the twins were born. Mother said when it was time to take the twins for their names and blessing Father had no Sunday pants, so she took two seamless sacks and made him a pair of trousers. She only had one shawl, so she wrapped one baby in a red table cloth. She carried one baby and Father carried the other one. She said Father was a proud man as ever walked, dressed in his seamless sack trousers carrying his little twin sons to church.
Brother Hyrum said he was sure he was the baby wrapped in the red table cloth. I could never be such a teeny man as brother Joe. Although the men that Brigham Young put in charge of the United Order knew that Father's home was not proved on. He was asked to join, Father feeling it was his duty to obey those in authority over him, left his home and went with a lot of others. In time, Brigham Young could see the men he trusted were filling their pockets from hard workers earnings. He discontinued the Order. He said God never meant for the United Order to be profit making, but to draw men closer together and he could see his people were not ready for that yet.
When Father returned with his family his home had been jumped. Mother's parents had taken up half of the city block in Monroe. They gave half of it to Mother, There Father built a little home where Mother lived and died. Although Father was left with his two naked hands to provide for his family, He still had his strong testimony to the gospel. As he had to get work wherever he could find it. He was often away from his home which left a lot of the care of the growing family to Mother.
In those days the people of Monroe got their water from a large creek that flowed from the main canyon. A few miles from town there was an irrigating ditch that ran down each block, then each man had a few hours each week to water their orchard and garden. Some of the men took up a piece of the hillside and had tunnels dug back in the hillside until they struck water. This water run into the main creek, this gave the men that owned the tunnel the right to use the water any time they wanted. Father got the job digging these tunnels. He would walk to his work Monday morning, work all week,walk home Saturday afternoon, take a bath, change to clean clothes, go to Sunday School and Sacrament meeting then walk back to work Sunday afternoon. I don't remember how long this lasted.
Finally he again decided to try to find a place where he could make a home for his family. He and a friend hearing about the Boulder country being open for settlers, went there. Father again took up 160 acres of land with a fine spring of water on it, and built a cabin. There was no settlement near this place but it is now Boulder City. After giving birth to thirteen children through hardship privation, poor Mother's health was gone. She lay in bed many months at a time. She would not dare to go so far away where there was no help near. She suffered with Gall trouble for years Which finally turned to cancer, and after many years lost her life.
The children were beginning to marry and settle down in homes of their own. Mother depended for help from her girls. So again poor Father had to swallow his disappointment and go back to hard drudgery of making a living. After first coming to their new home, Monroe, at odd times he planted a little orchard of plum and apple trees.and also shade trees around the yard. And several locust trees which filled the summer air with their lovely fragrance. He worked sometimes in the lime hills. At sheep dipping time he boiled the dip for the sheep men to dip their sheep in after shearing. He worked sometime in the fall of the threshing machine many long hours, early and late.
Sometime after brother Hyrum and Louise were married, Father tried once again to make a trip to the Boulder country. Louise's husband , Jim McMurtery, had always raised a few head of cattle and was anxious to find a place where he could go into the cattle business. So Father with Hyrum and Hyrum's brother-in-law, Hyrum Christensen started again for Boulder. As they would be passing through game country they took their guns. Jim brought his reloading outfit. After supper Jim decided to reload a few shells, Father warned him it would be dangerous to do such work around an open campfire, but Jim only laughed, putting his open gun powder between his knees sitting not far from the brightly burning campfire. He got ready to work, but a spark from the campfire flew into the open powder sack. It exploded on Jim's hand and into his face burning him severely. He suffered very much laying with his burned hands in the snow. A light skiff had fallen that night. They came home the next day, one more disappointment for poor Father. A doctor was called in to look after Jim,s burns. You couldn't tell him from a Negro. The gun powder had embedded in his flesh. He lay in bed for many days, his face and hands had to be covered with ointment every hour night and day until it was healed. It was quite sometime before he washed his face and hands again. Father went to work as usual wherever he could find work.
Before going any farther with my story I will write what brother Hyrum contributed about his trip with Father when he was a young boy. When I was a young boy, twelve yeas old, Father and I went east down the Dirty Devil River to Hanksville. Then from there east to a cattle ranch or you might say cattle range, a place called Robbers Roost. We worked all summer cleaning out springs, putting in watering troughs, built a cabin and corral all out of cedar posts, The posts were set in the ground on end and bound together with rawhide. In the fall I wrangled horses. While the cow punchers gathered cattle to take them to winter range on the Dirty Devil River. I don't know how much cash Father got but he took four cows on our work. I rode an old white mule bare back and drove the cows home. While we were out at the Roost, they sent me to Black City after mail, a distance of about 75 miles. I got lost, and and was lost three days. When night came I would take the saddle off my horse, tie an end of the lariat on the saddle so he wouldn't get away from me. Roll up with the saddle blanket for the night.
I want to contribute much more to what brother Hyrum has told. I can remember them telling of the cattle going on a rampage. Father and Hyrum had to climb a tree and spend the day in the tree until evening when the cattle grew tired and wandered off. Now back to my story. At one time Father took a job of sheep herding among the lower ranges and foot hills. He took very ill while at work with a very high fever, He went delirious and was found wandering in the foot hills, thinking, I guess, he was hunting for lost sheep. He was very ill for many days.
I wish I were able to give the dates of these happenings in Father's life, but I am not able to do so. At one time he and Mother decided to make a trip back to Big Cottonwood thinking it might do Mother some good to make a sort of pleasure trip out of it.
They went by team and covered wagon taking three of us children with them also one sister, Sarah, whom was a young lady living with Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim Tidd, where she had lived since she was seven years old. Aunt Ann never had any children. When Sarah was seven years old, Father got a job away from home and was taking Mother with him. Aunt Ann was heart broken, and she said, "What will I do you are taking all the children with you. I'll be so lonely." Mother said, "Well I guess Sarah can stay with you until we get back." Sarah never came home anymore. Aunt and Uncle had got so use to her they could not give her up. So, Mother and Father let them keep her. Mother said often at night her pillow was wet from letting her little girl go.
Now back to my story, we had a very enjoyable trip. Mother had a sister, Aunt Mary Andersen, living in Big Cottonwood and Father's sister, Aunt Mary Lark, living in Little Cottonwood. So we had a pleasant time visiting back and forth. Sarah had never met her cousins. There were two girls, Mary and Annie, around Sarah's age, they had a wonderful time. We returned home after a long visit. We enjoyed the trip very much cooking on a camp fire and sleeping under the stars. The weather was pleasant going and returning. I'm sure Mother was helped by the trip. Time went on about as before, Father working wherever he could find work, Herding sheep part of the time.
After I was married,Tony, my husband, Jim McMurtrey, his brother and Father decided to go up near Salt Lake to find work in the smelters. Jim didn't care about smelter work, and got a job herding sheep. Father and Tony went to work in the smelters. They boarded with Aunt Mary Lark, and drove back and forth to work. After a while Tony sent for me to come up and be with him. Later on Father sent for Mother. We moved closer to the work where the men could walk back and forth. We stayed until fall then went back to Monroe. A short time after this, a bunch of men from Monroe went to Big Horn, Wyoming, and Father and Jim going with them, also brother Joe. Part of them took homes, or that is city lots, in Lovell, Wyoming. But Jim took up a homestead on the river between the Big Horn and the Shoshone River. It was covered with cottonwood trees, there was no cleared land on it. There was no farming land to be had. It had all been taken before we got there. Again Father hired out to work wherever a man was needed. He worked for some time in Wyoming mountains at a sawmill as engineer. After some time Tony and I with Tony's sister, Bertie, and husband went on to the Big Horn, It was late when we got there. Jim and Louise were living in a tent on a Mr. Boggs place. Father was at the saw mill at this time, but came home when he heard we had arrived. He and Tony started at once to build on Jim's homestead. Tony cut down the timber and drug it to the home site. They soon had two rooms built. We all moved in for the winter, Bertie and John included. Mr. Boggs had land he wanted cleared, so they all went to work. It was a hard job. The land was covered with wild rose bushes, Father's shoes were the worst for wear. And after getting in bed at night he would call me to take his pocket knife and scrape the rose briers from the bottom of his feet.
Sometime before he went back to Utah, he and Tony got a job in a coal mine, owned by Ira Waters. He had to work out so much each year to hold his clam. He owned a store in Lovell. It was in the winter and very cold. Father dug out the coal and Tony hauled it across the flat to Waters Store. It was a long cold trip.
There were plenty of cotton tail. It was warm in the tunnel, Father would have a warm fire going and they would soon have a pan of rabbits on to fry. Ira Waters had no ready cash to spare so Father and Tony had to take their wages in store pay. I don't know exactly how long it was after the last work, that we received a letter from home telling of brother Erastus serious accident he received while logging. Father was asked to return home as brother Erastus wasn't expected to live. When I read the letter to him he said, "Oh, do I have to go back to that place where I have suffered so much." I think that was the only complaint anyone ever heard from him. Times were hard and none had any ready money. There was a man by the name Charley Moore who had come from Utah, bought a place down on the river, brought with him quite a herd of cattle. It not being much of a cattle country, he decided to go back to Utah, and was shipping his cattle. Father told him of his trouble, he told him he could ride the cattle car, so he went riding with the cattle. Mr. Moore brought his meals to him. I suppose Father had a few dollars in his pocket, enough to buy food. I don't remember how near home or Monroe Mr. Moore went with his cattle, at any rate Father arrived safely. Brother Rast was in serious condition. Father went every morning and rubbed his legs trying to bring life back into them, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. He lived many years but was always crippled.
Father went back to work of making a living, did a lot of sheep herding again. After sometime we left Big Horn and worked for some time where ditches were being taken out from the river on to new land. When that work was finished we heard of a new project at Burley, Idaho. We landed at Annis the 29th of August in 1908 got work for farmers and stayed. Not long after this Father came. After sometime he took up a 160 acre dry farm in the foot hills above Antelope. For a time Louise and Jim lived with him. Then Jim took up a 40 acre homestead on Antelope and had to move on his own land. Father getting too old to live by himself, and went to live with him. He was hoping one of his boys, either John or Andrew, would come and live on his place, but they didn't seem to care anything about dry farming in Idaho.
Wiley Mc Murtery, Jim and Tony's brother had a dry farm joining Father's place, and Father wasn't living there any more knew that it was ready to be jumped. Wiley"s stepson, Ernest Adamson was living with Wiley at the time. They planned to go down and jump Father's land. Wiley's son, Emeral, heard them talk it over. Father was living with us in Anne's at the time. Emeral rode down and told Father and Tony what they intended to do. This was the middle of the week, they were going to the land office the next Monday. Father said, "we'll fool them.Tony. Take me down and I'll turn it over to you." Father stayed with us part of the time, and with Jim and Louise part of the time. After Tony quit renting we moved to the dry farm for good. Moving down on Antelope in the winter, to send the children to school. Father would stay with us part of the time and with Jim and Louise part of the time. Father stayed with us part of the time when we lived in Antelope. He would go back to Louise's when we moved back in the spring. He did little odd jobs around, when there was any to do. One winter he cleaned the school house, two rooms and a hallway. He would get up early in the mornings and build the fires in the two heaters. He never missed church, when the people going to church would see Father coming over the hill to the church house they would say, "Here comes old faithful." He was never late.
He made two trips to Salt Lake after coming to Idaho. One trip the man that bought his step father's home was having trouble with the water right and called Father to come down and help straighten it out. He paid his fare down there and back and paid wages. Father testified that the home had a clear water right. He was able to buy himself a new suit for which he very badly in need. He had a nice visit with Sarah and her family while he was there.
His second trip to Salt Lake was a call from Mother to meet her there and help her with some temple work that had not been finished.
When he stayed with us at Annie's he used to visit with an old Danish couple by the name of Olsen. Father used to like to spend the afternoon and talk Danish. Mrs. Olsen served him with cake and coffee.
The winters on the dry farm were very hard. Father took several bad sick spells. Louise always called for me to be with her and help while he was ill. He was always very active. It was hard for him to be shut up and couldn't take his walk. In March 1924 he took very ill again. Louise called me to his bedside, she was ill at the time. I stayed and took care of him, getting him up the second day to change his bed, he became very ill. My son Mac was there. He help me get him back to bed. I sent Mac for the Bishop. He and his two counselors came.
Father's one arm and lay limp at his side. Brother Johnson told me to lift his arm and lay it across him, but he just let it lay. He said Father had a stroke. He lived only a few days and passed quietly away on March 28, 1924. We were having the worst kind of weather. The men tried to dig his grave on a Saturday before his burial, but the blizzard was so bad they had to finish it Sunday morning. As bad as the day was there was 200 people people to his funeral. He was loved by everybody that knew him. In Bishop Clifford's talk he said Brother Johnson was a man of few words, but those words counted. He was laid to rest on a hillside. A little ways from Jim and Louise's home. They built a nice fence around the plot and planted lawn grass. To his right a little grandson lies. Tony's and my baby, a month old. And this side a few feet a little great grandson, Jay and Annie's baby, a few hours old. Jay is Jim and Louise's oldest boy. Just a short time before Father passed away we had a cottage meeting at Louise's home. A Brother Browning was conducting the meeting. He asked Father to talk. Father said, "I never was much of a preacher." He bore a strong testimony to the Gospel and said, "I am ready to go as soon as the Lord is ready to take me. The Lord took him in less than a month.
THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT MY FATHER, ROBERT JOHNSON
BY HYRUM JOHNSON
Will jot down a few things I can remember about Father. The first was when I was a small child. We lived in a dugout near the Deertrail Mine In Piute County, Utah where Father worked. I remember getting on top of the dugout and trying to imitate the drunken miners for which I got a good paddling.
We moved back to Monroe. I don't remember much of what happened there for a few years. Next, I remember was living near the sloughs north of Anabella. What we were there for I don't know, but it was something to do with the United Orders. Father had a bunch of bucks belonging to Morse Magleby to care for. Brother Robert herded them barefooted. We must have been very poor. I remember Mother making cakes or whatever you might call them out of bran for us kids to eat. You can imagine about what they would be like. Father walked to Monroe and got 50 pounds of flour and packed it back a distance of almost ten miles.
We moved to Dry Creek Canyon, this came under the heading of the United Orders again.
Father operated the saw mill, it was run by water power and the saw was about ten feet long and ran up and down through the log. It was a slow process. They had a mill pond and had to wait for it to fill up to have power enough to run the saw as the stream was very small.
I don't remember much of what happened for the next few years. I remember our trip down the Dirty Devil River, and you know about that one summer we burned lime in a kiln south of Monkey Town. We worked one summer at Marysvale. burning charcoal. It was used in a assay office.
From there we went up the canyon and made timbers for the Bully Boy and Webster Mines. We then ran a shingle mill. I did the logging. I would go up the mountain with two old mules, cut the logs, put two logs to a mule and take them to the mill. Father made the shingles, later on he rented the Liscombe farm for the summer. I got the chills and fever and was laid up most of the summer. In the fall, I had my first wrangle with Father. He had traded the old mules for a span of old crow bait horses. He told me to go to Elsinore to the mill for pig feed and I told him to go after his own pig feed. Aunt Mary Anderson was there on a visit. She and Mother talked me into the notion of going. They went with me to make sure I made the trip.
Father went out his ranch in Nevada. He worked on the Big Springs Ranch all winter. In the spring, I put in Mr. Collings crop then went to his ranch in Nevada. We worked there all summer. Mr. Collings couldn't pay us very much of what he owed us, so we quit and came home. Later in the summer, Charles Moser and I made a trip to Boulder and did some work on a ditch to a piece of land. We came home for supplies in the fall. Father, Jim and Tony and I started back, that's when Jim got burned and that ended that trip.
We moved back to town in the winter. I hired out and went to live with William Collings and his family for my board and went to school.
In the spring, Father worked for the Monkey Town farmers. tunneling in the mountains for water. He struck a nice little stream in one place. While he worked out there, I used to take out his groceries. He had a skunk for a pet and sometimes a big blow snake. He didn't want anyone to bother them. If they got in his way, he just pushed them out of his way with a broom. He was always kind to animals of all kinds.
After he came to Idaho you know all about him.
Robert Johnson's birth name is Rasmus Jogensen. He was
born on 16 Feb 1842 at Dalby, Kirke-Helsinge, Holbaek, Denmark and christened 22 May 1842 in the Kirke-Helsinge parish. His father, Jorgen Rasmusen, was christened 15 May 1815 at Kirke-Helsinge parish. His mother, Lisbeth Pedersdatter, was born 21 Aug 1815 at Herslov, Finderup, Holbaek, Denmark. His parents were married 18 Jun 1841 at Gorlev, Bakkendrup, Holbaek, Denmark.
When Rasmus was seven months old, his father died on 14 Sep 1842. Rasmus went with his mother to live with her mother and step father, Ane Christiansdatter and Peder Hansen. They lived at Herslov, Finderup,Holbaek, Denmark.
Lisbeth married Christian Olsen on 29 Jul 1848. Rasmus was six years old at that time. They had five children born in Denmark.Jorgen was born 3 Jun 1848, Niels Peder was born 11 May 1850, Ane Kirstine was born 21 Aug 1852, Jorgen Peder was born 14 Jan 1855 and Ellen Marie was born 12 Jul 1857.
Sorrow came to the family when their son, Jorgen, age 6 died 20 Mar 1854. Two days later their little son, Niels Peder, age 4 died on 22 Mar 1854.
Christian Olsen, Lisbeth Pedersdatter Olsen and Rasmus Jorgensen were baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 25 May 1858 and confirmed on 27 May 1858.
The family left to go to America on the ship William Tapscott on 11 Apr 1859. They arrived in New York, New York on 13 May 1859. The three little children Ane Kirstine, Jorgen Peder and Ellen Marie were ill so they were taken to a hospital. Christian and Rasmus got work to earn money to continue their journey to Utah. When they went to the hospital for the children, they were told that all three children had died. They could not find out what became of their bodies. What a tragedy this was for Rasmus and his parents.
They went on to Iowa City, Iowa where they were blessed with a baby girl on 3 Mar 1860. They named her Mary. Rasmus was eighteen years old whan his only living sibling was born. Mary was only four months old when the family joined the Joseph W. Young Freight Train. They departed from Florence, Nebraska on 23 Jul and arrived in Salt Lake Valley 3 Oct 1860.
From the history of Sophia Jensen Johnson
"They started across the plains with the rest of the Saints pulling the handcart. After a long and tiresome journey they arrived in Big Cottonwood where my husband's people made their home."
Robert was a team master in 1862 when he met Sophia Jensen at Fort Bridger, Wyoming. Sophia's says, "When I was nearing 18 years old, the handsome young man who smiled at me so sweetly when I arrived in Fort Bridger, began courting me. Two months later we were married. Our wedding day was Dec. 9, 1862. My husband often told me that he fell in love with me the first day he met me."
Robert and Sophia had thirteen children. Their little girl, Caroline, died as a small child. They raised the rest of their children to manhood and womanhood.
A Brief History of the Life of Robert Johnson
Written by his daughter Mettie Eliza Johnson McMurtery
Having written a little of Mother's life, I felt I should write what little I know of my father's life. Mother having told all she knew of his early life up to the time of their their marriage. For a while they lived in Big Cottonwood where five of their children were born. ( Insert by Alta Stoker--The history of Sophia Jensen Johnson says that three of their children were born in Big Cottonwood.) While living there Father took a job logging for a sawmill, hired twelve men to help. Mother went along to cook. Mother's sister, Aunt Ann, went along to help Mother, she was single at the time. Mother had two children at that time, Mary and Erastus. Mary was two years old and Erastus was a small baby. While Mother was busy she would sit with little Mary to rock the baby to sleep. Mother said she would rock the baby and sing Bom-Bom-Bom, a Danish lullaby her Grandmother Jensen had taught her.
One of the men Father hired was James W. Tidd. While working there he and Aunt Ann fell in love. After work he came in to visit a while. Uncle would sit down and Aunt Ann would sit on his lap, little Mary would point her finger at them and say, See a Beka-toe, meaning see them two. She talked the Danish language when she was a little girl.
Father worked some years wherever he could find work to provide for his growing family. Two different times he found and took up claims, but could find no one who was willing to stake him while he worked them, and had to sell for what he could get. Once he was paid six hundred dollars for one claim. Mother said at that time everything was very high, a spool of thread cost sixty cents and muslin two dollars per yard. So with a growing family to be fed and clothed it didn't last very long. One mine Father sold ran for many years.
After some years a bunch of Saints were called to go to southern Utah to make homes. Father went with and took up 160 acres of good farm ground at Joseph City, Utah. He raised one crop and was called to join the United Order. On that homestead the twins were born. Mother said when it was time to take the twins for their names and blessing Father had no Sunday pants, so she took two seamless sacks and made him a pair of trousers. She only had one shawl, so she wrapped one baby in a red table cloth. She carried one baby and Father carried the other one. She said Father was a proud man as ever walked, dressed in his seamless sack trousers carrying his little twin sons to church.
Brother Hyrum said he was sure he was the baby wrapped in the red table cloth. I could never be such a teeny man as brother Joe. Although the men that Brigham Young put in charge of the United Order knew that Father's home was not proved on. He was asked to join, Father feeling it was his duty to obey those in authority over him, left his home and went with a lot of others. In time, Brigham Young could see the men he trusted were filling their pockets from hard workers earnings. He discontinued the Order. He said God never meant for the United Order to be profit making, but to draw men closer together and he could see his people were not ready for that yet.
When Father returned with his family his home had been jumped. Mother's parents had taken up half of the city block in Monroe. They gave half of it to Mother, There Father built a little home where Mother lived and died. Although Father was left with his two naked hands to provide for his family, He still had his strong testimony to the gospel. As he had to get work wherever he could find it. He was often away from his home which left a lot of the care of the growing family to Mother.
In those days the people of Monroe got their water from a large creek that flowed from the main canyon. A few miles from town there was an irrigating ditch that ran down each block, then each man had a few hours each week to water their orchard and garden. Some of the men took up a piece of the hillside and had tunnels dug back in the hillside until they struck water. This water run into the main creek, this gave the men that owned the tunnel the right to use the water any time they wanted. Father got the job digging these tunnels. He would walk to his work Monday morning, work all week,walk home Saturday afternoon, take a bath, change to clean clothes, go to Sunday School and Sacrament meeting then walk back to work Sunday afternoon. I don't remember how long this lasted.
Finally he again decided to try to find a place where he could make a home for his family. He and a friend hearing about the Boulder country being open for settlers, went there. Father again took up 160 acres of land with a fine spring of water on it, and built a cabin. There was no settlement near this place but it is now Boulder City. After giving birth to thirteen children through hardship privation, poor Mother's health was gone. She lay in bed many months at a time. She would not dare to go so far away where there was no help near. She suffered with Gall trouble for years Which finally turned to cancer, and after many years lost her life.
The children were beginning to marry and settle down in homes of their own. Mother depended for help from her girls. So again poor Father had to swallow his disappointment and go back to hard drudgery of making a living. After first coming to their new home, Monroe, at odd times he planted a little orchard of plum and apple trees.and also shade trees around the yard. And several locust trees which filled the summer air with their lovely fragrance. He worked sometimes in the lime hills. At sheep dipping time he boiled the dip for the sheep men to dip their sheep in after shearing. He worked sometime in the fall of the threshing machine many long hours, early and late.
Sometime after brother Hyrum and Louise were married, Father tried once again to make a trip to the Boulder country. Louise's husband , Jim McMurtery, had always raised a few head of cattle and was anxious to find a place where he could go into the cattle business. So Father with Hyrum and Hyrum's brother-in-law, Hyrum Christensen started again for Boulder. As they would be passing through game country they took their guns. Jim brought his reloading outfit. After supper Jim decided to reload a few shells, Father warned him it would be dangerous to do such work around an open campfire, but Jim only laughed, putting his open gun powder between his knees sitting not far from the brightly burning campfire. He got ready to work, but a spark from the campfire flew into the open powder sack. It exploded on Jim's hand and into his face burning him severely. He suffered very much laying with his burned hands in the snow. A light skiff had fallen that night. They came home the next day, one more disappointment for poor Father. A doctor was called in to look after Jim,s burns. You couldn't tell him from a Negro. The gun powder had embedded in his flesh. He lay in bed for many days, his face and hands had to be covered with ointment every hour night and day until it was healed. It was quite sometime before he washed his face and hands again. Father went to work as usual wherever he could find work.
Before going any farther with my story I will write what brother Hyrum contributed about his trip with Father when he was a young boy. When I was a young boy, twelve yeas old, Father and I went east down the Dirty Devil River to Hanksville. Then from there east to a cattle ranch or you might say cattle range, a place called Robbers Roost. We worked all summer cleaning out springs, putting in watering troughs, built a cabin and corral all out of cedar posts, The posts were set in the ground on end and bound together with rawhide. In the fall I wrangled horses. While the cow punchers gathered cattle to take them to winter range on the Dirty Devil River. I don't know how much cash Father got but he took four cows on our work. I rode an old white mule bare back and drove the cows home. While we were out at the Roost, they sent me to Black City after mail, a distance of about 75 miles. I got lost, and and was lost three days. When night came I would take the saddle off my horse, tie an end of the lariat on the saddle so he wouldn't get away from me. Roll up with the saddle blanket for the night.
I want to contribute much more to what brother Hyrum has told. I can remember them telling of the cattle going on a rampage. Father and Hyrum had to climb a tree and spend the day in the tree until evening when the cattle grew tired and wandered off. Now back to my story. At one time Father took a job of sheep herding among the lower ranges and foot hills. He took very ill while at work with a very high fever, He went delirious and was found wandering in the foot hills, thinking, I guess, he was hunting for lost sheep. He was very ill for many days.
I wish I were able to give the dates of these happenings in Father's life, but I am not able to do so. At one time he and Mother decided to make a trip back to Big Cottonwood thinking it might do Mother some good to make a sort of pleasure trip out of it.
They went by team and covered wagon taking three of us children with them also one sister, Sarah, whom was a young lady living with Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim Tidd, where she had lived since she was seven years old. Aunt Ann never had any children. When Sarah was seven years old, Father got a job away from home and was taking Mother with him. Aunt Ann was heart broken, and she said, "What will I do you are taking all the children with you. I'll be so lonely." Mother said, "Well I guess Sarah can stay with you until we get back." Sarah never came home anymore. Aunt and Uncle had got so use to her they could not give her up. So, Mother and Father let them keep her. Mother said often at night her pillow was wet from letting her little girl go.
Now back to my story, we had a very enjoyable trip. Mother had a sister, Aunt Mary Andersen, living in Big Cottonwood and Father's sister, Aunt Mary Lark, living in Little Cottonwood. So we had a pleasant time visiting back and forth. Sarah had never met her cousins. There were two girls, Mary and Annie, around Sarah's age, they had a wonderful time. We returned home after a long visit. We enjoyed the trip very much cooking on a camp fire and sleeping under the stars. The weather was pleasant going and returning. I'm sure Mother was helped by the trip. Time went on about as before, Father working wherever he could find work, Herding sheep part of the time.
After I was married,Tony, my husband, Jim McMurtrey, his brother and Father decided to go up near Salt Lake to find work in the smelters. Jim didn't care about smelter work, and got a job herding sheep. Father and Tony went to work in the smelters. They boarded with Aunt Mary Lark, and drove back and forth to work. After a while Tony sent for me to come up and be with him. Later on Father sent for Mother. We moved closer to the work where the men could walk back and forth. We stayed until fall then went back to Monroe. A short time after this, a bunch of men from Monroe went to Big Horn, Wyoming, and Father and Jim going with them, also brother Joe. Part of them took homes, or that is city lots, in Lovell, Wyoming. But Jim took up a homestead on the river between the Big Horn and the Shoshone River. It was covered with cottonwood trees, there was no cleared land on it. There was no farming land to be had. It had all been taken before we got there. Again Father hired out to work wherever a man was needed. He worked for some time in Wyoming mountains at a sawmill as engineer. After some time Tony and I with Tony's sister, Bertie, and husband went on to the Big Horn, It was late when we got there. Jim and Louise were living in a tent on a Mr. Boggs place. Father was at the saw mill at this time, but came home when he heard we had arrived. He and Tony started at once to build on Jim's homestead. Tony cut down the timber and drug it to the home site. They soon had two rooms built. We all moved in for the winter, Bertie and John included. Mr. Boggs had land he wanted cleared, so they all went to work. It was a hard job. The land was covered with wild rose bushes, Father's shoes were the worst for wear. And after getting in bed at night he would call me to take his pocket knife and scrape the rose briers from the bottom of his feet.
Sometime before he went back to Utah, he and Tony got a job in a coal mine, owned by Ira Waters. He had to work out so much each year to hold his clam. He owned a store in Lovell. It was in the winter and very cold. Father dug out the coal and Tony hauled it across the flat to Waters Store. It was a long cold trip.
There were plenty of cotton tail. It was warm in the tunnel, Father would have a warm fire going and they would soon have a pan of rabbits on to fry. Ira Waters had no ready cash to spare so Father and Tony had to take their wages in store pay. I don't know exactly how long it was after the last work, that we received a letter from home telling of brother Erastus serious accident he received while logging. Father was asked to return home as brother Erastus wasn't expected to live. When I read the letter to him he said, "Oh, do I have to go back to that place where I have suffered so much." I think that was the only complaint anyone ever heard from him. Times were hard and none had any ready money. There was a man by the name Charley Moore who had come from Utah, bought a place down on the river, brought with him quite a herd of cattle. It not being much of a cattle country, he decided to go back to Utah, and was shipping his cattle. Father told him of his trouble, he told him he could ride the cattle car, so he went riding with the cattle. Mr. Moore brought his meals to him. I suppose Father had a few dollars in his pocket, enough to buy food. I don't remember how near home or Monroe Mr. Moore went with his cattle, at any rate Father arrived safely. Brother Rast was in serious condition. Father went every morning and rubbed his legs trying to bring life back into them, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. He lived many years but was always crippled.
Father went back to work of making a living, did a lot of sheep herding again. After sometime we left Big Horn and worked for some time where ditches were being taken out from the river on to new land. When that work was finished we heard of a new project at Burley, Idaho. We landed at Annis the 29th of August in 1908 got work for farmers and stayed. Not long after this Father came. After sometime he took up a 160 acre dry farm in the foot hills above Antelope. For a time Louise and Jim lived with him. Then Jim took up a 40 acre homestead on Antelope and had to move on his own land. Father getting too old to live by himself, and went to live with him. He was hoping one of his boys, either John or Andrew, would come and live on his place, but they didn't seem to care anything about dry farming in Idaho.
Wiley Mc Murtery, Jim and Tony's brother had a dry farm joining Father's place, and Father wasn't living there any more knew that it was ready to be jumped. Wiley"s stepson, Ernest Adamson was living with Wiley at the time. They planned to go down and jump Father's land. Wiley's son, Emeral, heard them talk it over. Father was living with us in Anne's at the time. Emeral rode down and told Father and Tony what they intended to do. This was the middle of the week, they were going to the land office the next Monday. Father said, "we'll fool them.Tony. Take me down and I'll turn it over to you." Father stayed with us part of the time, and with Jim and Louise part of the time. After Tony quit renting we moved to the dry farm for good. Moving down on Antelope in the winter, to send the children to school. Father would stay with us part of the time and with Jim and Louise part of the time. Father stayed with us part of the time when we lived in Antelope. He would go back to Louise's when we moved back in the spring. He did little odd jobs around, when there was any to do. One winter he cleaned the school house, two rooms and a hallway. He would get up early in the mornings and build the fires in the two heaters. He never missed church, when the people going to church would see Father coming over the hill to the church house they would say, "Here comes old faithful." He was never late.
He made two trips to Salt Lake after coming to Idaho. One trip the man that bought his step father's home was having trouble with the water right and called Father to come down and help straighten it out. He paid his fare down there and back and paid wages. Father testified that the home had a clear water right. He was able to buy himself a new suit for which he very badly in need. He had a nice visit with Sarah and her family while he was there.
His second trip to Salt Lake was a call from Mother to meet her there and help her with some temple work that had not been finished.
When he stayed with us at Annie's he used to visit with an old Danish couple by the name of Olsen. Father used to like to spend the afternoon and talk Danish. Mrs. Olsen served him with cake and coffee.
The winters on the dry farm were very hard. Father took several bad sick spells. Louise always called for me to be with her and help while he was ill. He was always very active. It was hard for him to be shut up and couldn't take his walk. In March 1924 he took very ill again. Louise called me to his bedside, she was ill at the time. I stayed and took care of him, getting him up the second day to change his bed, he became very ill. My son Mac was there. He help me get him back to bed. I sent Mac for the Bishop. He and his two counselors came.
Father's one arm and lay limp at his side. Brother Johnson told me to lift his arm and lay it across him, but he just let it lay. He said Father had a stroke. He lived only a few days and passed quietly away on March 28, 1924. We were having the worst kind of weather. The men tried to dig his grave on a Saturday before his burial, but the blizzard was so bad they had to finish it Sunday morning. As bad as the day was there was 200 people people to his funeral. He was loved by everybody that knew him. In Bishop Clifford's talk he said Brother Johnson was a man of few words, but those words counted. He was laid to rest on a hillside. A little ways from Jim and Louise's home. They built a nice fence around the plot and planted lawn grass. To his right a little grandson lies. Tony's and my baby, a month old. And this side a few feet a little great grandson, Jay and Annie's baby, a few hours old. Jay is Jim and Louise's oldest boy. Just a short time before Father passed away we had a cottage meeting at Louise's home. A Brother Browning was conducting the meeting. He asked Father to talk. Father said, "I never was much of a preacher." He bore a strong testimony to the Gospel and said, "I am ready to go as soon as the Lord is ready to take me. The Lord took him in less than a month.
THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT MY FATHER, ROBERT JOHNSON
BY HYRUM JOHNSON
Will jot down a few things I can remember about Father. The first was when I was a small child. We lived in a dugout near the Deertrail Mine In Piute County, Utah where Father worked. I remember getting on top of the dugout and trying to imitate the drunken miners for which I got a good paddling.
We moved back to Monroe. I don't remember much of what happened there for a few years. Next, I remember was living near the sloughs north of Anabella. What we were there for I don't know, but it was something to do with the United Orders. Father had a bunch of bucks belonging to Morse Magleby to care for. Brother Robert herded them barefooted. We must have been very poor. I remember Mother making cakes or whatever you might call them out of bran for us kids to eat. You can imagine about what they would be like. Father walked to Monroe and got 50 pounds of flour and packed it back a distance of almost ten miles.
We moved to Dry Creek Canyon, this came under the heading of the United Orders again.
Father operated the saw mill, it was run by water power and the saw was about ten feet long and ran up and down through the log. It was a slow process. They had a mill pond and had to wait for it to fill up to have power enough to run the saw as the stream was very small.
I don't remember much of what happened for the next few years. I remember our trip down the Dirty Devil River, and you know about that one summer we burned lime in a kiln south of Monkey Town. We worked one summer at Marysvale. burning charcoal. It was used in a assay office.
From there we went up the canyon and made timbers for the Bully Boy and Webster Mines. We then ran a shingle mill. I did the logging. I would go up the mountain with two old mules, cut the logs, put two logs to a mule and take them to the mill. Father made the shingles, later on he rented the Liscombe farm for the summer. I got the chills and fever and was laid up most of the summer. In the fall, I had my first wrangle with Father. He had traded the old mules for a span of old crow bait horses. He told me to go to Elsinore to the mill for pig feed and I told him to go after his own pig feed. Aunt Mary Anderson was there on a visit. She and Mother talked me into the notion of going. They went with me to make sure I made the trip.
Father went out his ranch in Nevada. He worked on the Big Springs Ranch all winter. In the spring, I put in Mr. Collings crop then went to his ranch in Nevada. We worked there all summer. Mr. Collings couldn't pay us very much of what he owed us, so we quit and came home. Later in the summer, Charles Moser and I made a trip to Boulder and did some work on a ditch to a piece of land. We came home for supplies in the fall. Father, Jim and Tony and I started back, that's when Jim got burned and that ended that trip.
We moved back to town in the winter. I hired out and went to live with William Collings and his family for my board and went to school.
In the spring, Father worked for the Monkey Town farmers. tunneling in the mountains for water. He struck a nice little stream in one place. While he worked out there, I used to take out his groceries. He had a skunk for a pet and sometimes a big blow snake. He didn't want anyone to bother them. If they got in his way, he just pushed them out of his way with a broom. He was always kind to animals of all kinds.
After he came to Idaho you know all about him.
Family Members
Children
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Mary Elizabeth Johnson Julander
1863–1945
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Erastus Johnson
1865–1934
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Robert Johnson
1868–1914
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Catherine Johnson Haslam
1870–1933
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Annie Johnson Julander
1872–1962
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Joseph Larsen Johnson
1874–1964
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Hyrum Alton Johnson Sr
1874–1966
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Sarah Ellen Johnson Anderson
1876–1955
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Louise Johnson McMurtrey
1879–1959
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John Christian Johnson
1881–1968
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Mettie Eliza Johnson McMurtrey
1883–1964
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Andrew James Johnson
1885–1944
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