Art & Myrt were attending Casa Grande Union High School (photo removed in favor of this military portrait) in 1928, when Art quit during his Senior year to marry Myrt and regretted that decision later on, although he got his GED in the Army. He took many of the photographs for the 1928 yearbook.

The original Casa Grande Union High School in Casa Grande, Arizona was built in 1920-21. It featured an indoor swimming pool and an auditorium. The large building's construction was a major milestone for the growing town between Phoenix and Tucson. The original high school and gym, now used as the Casa Grande City Hall since 1997, when the new high school was completed at a new location, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Name: Arthur Leroy Johnston
Service Info.: M SGT US ARMY WORLD WAR II, KOREA
Enlistment Date: 20 Oct 1943
Release Date: 31 Oct 1963
Birth Date: 13 Oct 1907
Death Date: 17 Jun 1995
Interment Date: 20 Jun 1995
Cemetery: Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery
Cemetery Address: 2900 Sheridan Road St. Louis, MO 63125
Buried At: Section 1-I Site 73

READ OVER THE PHONE TO ME BY PETE JOHNSTON:
​​
Written in Johnston Family Bible Pete had:
Linna Elma Johnston, b. 8-10-1894
Freddie Johnston, b. 4-21-1896 ; d. 6-26-1896
Raymond Lancaster, b. 7-29-1897
Lester Lawrence Johnston, b. 8-24-1905
Arthur LeRoy Johnston, b. 1907

Mrs. Nevada Johnston d. 1918 flu
George W. Johnston July 10, 1935 killed

Art Johnston wrote in Bible:
June Clerk in grocery store
$10 to G Johnston
1921-June 1925 went to school
$22 weekly wages Casa Grande
June 1925 May 1929 restaurant salary $20
1929-1939 worked for Pointer Bros in FREDONIA as powder man

[April 7, 1930 - Art "Ice Man", Myrt & Lee Roy living with George W. Johnston in CASA GRANDE, AZ]

[1935 Residence: Rural Pinal County, AZ --
from 1940 Census]

1939 truck driver for const co in FREDONIA
1939 - 1941 self-employed, SHORT CREEK

[1940 Census (April 29, 1940), SHORT CREEK, AZ
Renting $25/month, living next door to Dow H. Pointer's (43) own $1500 farm, who had lived in Rural Coconino Co, AZ in 1935; now living with "new" wife, LaVerne (37) UT & her 3 Lauritzen children (ages 17, 14, 10) UT in the same house where she lived in 1935.
Arthur Johnston 31, Farmer, Farm
Myrtle Johnston 33
Lee Roy Johnston 11 AZ
Robert Johnston 9 AZ
William Dean "Billy" (Pete) Johnston 6 AZ
Jerry Johnston 3 AZ
Troy Johnston was born
SHORT CREEK, AZ on Nov. 11, 1940]

41-42 Kingman, AZ
42-42 RR in charge of 22 men 97 SS frr came back to FREDONIA
42 Nov driver & checker maintenance 75 for John B. Sloane (JBS a Phoenix Mail Carrier in 1917) 1941-1948 for sure: Sloane's Transfer & Storage Co. (J. B. Sloane) 21 E. Buchanan, Phoenix, AZ -- in San Diego, CA in 1926 (maybe Sloane's provided a local job for Art in Fredonia in Nov 1942 for $75?)

ART & ANN JOHNSTON ADDRESSES:
1991-Present: Vero Beach, FL
1990s: 4 different addresses in St. Louis, MO

Art in the Army & Myrt

Portrait of Art Johnston taken in 1927 in Tucson, AZ when he was still an eligible bachelor.

Art and his first wife, Myrt. They were married February 24, 1928, in Casa Grande, AZ, right out of high school, and had five sons together before divorcing in 1951 when he was in the Army in Germany where he met his second wife, Ann. They were married in 1955 by both the German and American Governments.

Art & Myrt

Myrt's dad, Lorenzo Dow Pointer 1869-1938
Marriage: 6 Apr 1893 - Gila, Arizona:

Marjorie said that Lorenzo's Cherokee great-grandmother Pointer was from OK (undocumented/unproven) - Marjorie has in her safety deposit box a Paper Valentine sent during Civil War 1/2 star off flag from Battle of Vicksburg - envelope not complete.
Lorenzo Dow Pointer and Martha Anne "Annie" McBush met between 1883-1886, when she arrived in Globe, AZ, and 1893, when married. They met in Globe, AZ, where she was a waitress and he was a freighter, so he brought food for the Old Dominion Commercial Co. there. He may have taken copper out of the Old Dominion Mine in Globe, too. By 1894, he took teams of horses to Phoenix for railroad into PHX (where Ida born). LDP on Fire Crew in PHX (in records). They moved to Flagstaff for railroad into Flagstaff, where he, a timberman, logged timber with his teams of horses. Anna: Lee's story untrue that they only came to Flag summers to escape heat while LDP harvested trees; lived there year round (where Bill born 1896). Anna says rumor of "two Pointer Families" got started with her mom's little joke in Flagstaff when there was a Black family also named "Pointer" living nearby. She says there's no truth to what Lee & Dennis heard: [Lee Locke and son, Dennis say Martha may be LDP's 4th wife, and this is only one of 4 families; i.e. children by all his wives, with not much time between each wife -- but NOT polygamy -- a widower 3 times over.] They were in Cortez, AZ in 1904, in Durango, CO in 1906, and Farmington, NM in 1918. LDP had a cattle ranch in NM. Mr. Simmons was one of his partners. LDP was a Sheriff for years in Farmington, NM. Areas in NM mentioned by Anna: "9 miles below Benita/Indian Reservation there/Meyers Canyon." "Waterflow Valley, NM" also mentioned. (Years & places according to birthplaces of their children). There were Mexicans raiding along the AZ border, rustling cattle at night, and Lorenzo's brother, "Ike" (John Isaac?) Pointer, was involved in that, too. Anna knows nothing of what Lee said re: Lorenzo had a trolley service in the wintertime when the streets were muddy -- the horses did the route up and down the street almost on their own (he DID have teams of horses). Lee Locke said Myrt was the apple of her dad's eye. Anna said Myrt got more attention because she was sickly, always getting pneumonia, etc. Anna feels Ida was the favorite. Ida was 24 years older and Myrt 12 years older than Anna. My notes from Bob say someone in the family had a lease on the Navajo Reservation, but hoof & mouth disease broke out? Eloi or Casa Grande, where Myrt met Art Johnston? (Bob said Martha's people arrived in FREDONIA area in 1928 or 1929. Anna says not.) Marjorie heard Martha McBush's first husband died during a cattleman/sheepman feud in CO - but conceded it could have been her second husband, Mr. Keene.
+ Martha Ann McBush (1873-1952)
(Bob was in Japan with Army when she died.) Ida & Lee Locke came to funeral. Grandma Keene lived by Golden Rule.
Martha was 10-13 yrs. old (abt. 1885) when her three half-brothers, Hal, Jim & Bill, stepdad Keene from TX? (he may have been dead by then) & her mom, Mrs. McBush Keene, left CO for Globe, AZ, where future first AZ Gov. George W.P. (Wylie Paul) Hunt taught Martha to wait tables at The Old Dominion Commercial Co., because he, himself, was waiter, miner, dishwasher when he first arrived in Globe 1881? 1888? Pete has photo (Martha & Lorenzo can't be seen) of them crossing the Coolidge Dam, PHX area with Model T Truck & team of horses pulling a wagon. Martha's mother lived on a plantation on the Louisiana border. After their slaves were freed, they joined a wagon train to Mangus, CO. Martha's father either died enroute on the wagon train or Indians attacked it and he was killed. Anna says their name was spelled "McBush". Martha's mother remarried to Mr. Keene from Texas, and her 3 half-brothers were born in Colorado.)
Martha's half-brothers were the infamous Bill Keene "Shanley" & Jim Keene, who had an older brother, Hal. Bob stayed with these uncles summers herding cattle on their homestead Canaan Ranch on the ARIZONA STRIP, NW corner of AZ and of the Kaibab Plateau (covers over 2 million acres) Vermillion Cliffs from House Rock Valley; AZ Strip NM; AZ Strip PANORAMAS; ARIZONA STRIP cattle grazing;
HISTORY; AZ Strip--that part of NW AZ cut off by Grand Canyon, refuge for polygamists & outlaws near Lange's Run, a dry creek, 30 miles south of Canaan, UT, and 50 miles from Fredonia, AZ, near Mt. Trumbell and Clay Hole Flats. [NOTE: In about 1865, Nathan Cram had an experience with Indians that was told to James H. McClintock for a book titled "Mormon Settlement in Arizona" by Nathan's son Ammon Meshach Tenney who was also present. Pages 70-71: "Ammon M. Tenney told of an experience in 1865 at a point eighteen miles west of Pipe Springs and six miles southwest of Canaan, Utah. Then, in the darkness, they made their way fifteen miles into Duncan's Retreat on the Virgin River in Utah.]

Bob said the Keene brothers were crabby, would think for hours, and didn't like kids. They sold the ranch after Bob had to leave in June 1951 to go overseas with the Army. Bob told them he didn't want to be at the ranch anymore. "Shanley" was supposed to have killed somebody in Globe, AZ, so changed his name to "Shanley". There is a book by that name, written 17 years ago, but the St. George author used so much profanity, etc. to write the story that even Bob called it "trash" and Carol threw it away in disgust, so I've never seen it. Shanley brought lots of horses (horse thief) from Canada TR Hunting Camp, where two mounties supposedly got killed. Jim & Bill had 2 or 3 other ranches. Their cows had two calves a year, but they liked to party, so Shanley would say, "Jim, go kill a couple of steers and sell them." One day he went out and there were none left. If he had stayed sober, he was the "best calf roper" (roped calves by heels from his horse), and made good money at rodeos in Cheyenne. When Bob was big enough to drive a team, he worked for Fredonia Sheriff Thomas Jensen, who told Bob, "Three times Bill Shanley had enough money to retire, but he got drunk and blew it."