Tom Johnson

Biography

Timeline

1. Once, for Sunday dinner

   Sunday ham dinner with Ruth and Tom Johnson

   Ruth and Tom Johnson invited the family over. Ruth served ham with all the trimmings, including ham gravy, in their dining room; Carol remembered it as very special.

   Carol's Chapter

2. date not given

   Learning The Lord’s Prayer at Sunday school

   Robert remembers Sunday school classes at his neighbors’ house, where he learned The Lord’s Prayer.

   Bob's Chapter

3. date not given

   Tom Johnson's tree knocks out power lines

   Tom Johnson cut down a tree and knocked out the power lines.

   Bob's Chapter

4. most of the summer

   Building Floyd Guild’s Well

   After choosing a site with a willow divining rod, Floyd cast a dozen concrete rings, each three feet high and three feet in diameter with approximately eight-inch-thick walls. He excavated beneath successive rings until the well was thirty-three feet deep. Bernard and Bob helped winch dirt; Dale McFarland and Tom Johnson are tentatively identified as neighbors who later helped. One unused ring was rolled to the orchard.

   Bernie's Chapter

5. date not given

   Cave-In at Tom Johnson’s Brick Well

   The narrator mentions that Tom Johnson's brick well had suffered a cave-in, contrasting it with the security of Floyd's concrete-ring construction.

   Bernie's Chapter

6. When we got home

   Tom Johnson’s lesson in gratitude

   Tom scolded the narrator for failing to thank others. The narrator felt embarrassed, never told his parents, disliked Tom afterward, and thereafter always remembered to give thanks.

   Bernie's Chapter

7. When we were about eleven

   Billy Johnson receives Gypsy

   Neighborhood children gathered to admire Billy's Shetland pony. Ray leaped onto her back, provoking an angry reaction from Tom.

   Bernie's Chapter

8. After Gypsy's departure

   A trial older brother arrives for Billy

   Ruth and Tom obtained an unnamed trial older brother as companionship for Billy. He was later returned to the orphanage after spending his time pursuing neighborhood girls rather than being Billy's companion.

   Bernie's Chapter

Stories mentioning Tom

• First Earnings and a Room to Be Proud OfSelling flower seeds door to door earned Dee two bedroom lamps, and she also babysat for the Hancocks and Iris. She recalls Iris meeting Bill at Cozy Corners, Iris’s wedding and emerald ring, and a frightening night babysitting in Iris’s large house, when she hid a knife beneath a sofa cushion. Summer work at Tasty Treat brought unlimited root beer and paychecks that Dee and Carol pooled for twin beds, turquoise bedspreads, a lamp, and a rug; Mom made matching curtains. Dee also praises Bernie’s lasting plasterwork in his room.
• Mom's Kitchen, Backyard Roasts, and a Special Sunday DinnerCarol recalls homemade meals, sweets, Friday-night treats, and bedtime snacks, including Lloyd teaching the children to dunk peanut butter sandwiches into cocoa. She remembers coloring margarine and refusing ten cents to eat liver. After the move to 39th Street, Mom raised chickens, Bob had a pig, and Grandpa Williams raised rabbits. Watching a chicken being killed terrified Carol, though chicken dinners and competing for the wishbone were memorable. Daddy prepared backyard wiener roasts. Restaurant meals never occurred and dinner invitations were rare, making a Sunday ham dinner with Ruth and Tom Johnson especially memorable.
• Floyd Guild’s Well and a Father-Son SecretBernard recalls Daddy locating water with a forked willow divining rod near the kitchen door, then spending much of a summer casting a dozen massive concrete rings. Daddy dug inside the stacked rings as they sank into the ground, creating a secure thirty-three-foot well. Bernard and Bob played in the rings and helped haul dirt until neighbors took over. A leftover ring became a play space in the orchard. Before water was reached, Dad and Dale secretly lowered Bernard into the cold well in a rough rope halter. Bernard recalled seeing stars in the daytime sky from the bottom. Threatened with the razor strap if he told Mom, he kept the secret until late in life; she claimed she had already known, which he doubted.
• Bob's Bright Fragments of ChildhoodBob lists vivid childhood memories: neighbors, a gasoline burn while playing with a toy steamshovel, Barbara refusing medicine, Bernie's skating injury, and Tom Johnson knocking out power lines with a falling tree. He recalls visiting the Rodgers in Cordova, swimming at Campbell’s Island, annual Riverside Park picnics, Iris’s wedding, and poker games with Art and Eileen Cordingly. Other memories include orchard camping and spraying, gathering walnuts, toys and homemade kites, fireworks, homemade foods, hauling water when the well dried up, building a house addition, basement heat relief and flooding, coal heating, backyard tomatoes, and the surviving mailbox millstone.
• From Sunday School to Prayers for FamilyBob recalls learning The Lord’s Prayer at Sunday school in Tom and Ruth Johnson’s house, followed by little church attendance. He married in a church in 1960 and joined the Methodist Church after moving to Janesville in 1972. He describes fairly regular attendance, belief in God, and silent prayers that include those likely to read his account.
• A Chicago Visit and a Lasting Lesson in ThanksBernard visited Grandma and Grandpa Hobson in Chicago with Billy Johnson and Billy’s parents. They ate lunch at Marshall Field’s, ordering from a huge giraffe-shaped children’s menu, and Bernard bought Bob a toy roller coaster. After they returned home, Tom Johnson scolded Bernard for not thanking others for their kindness. Bernard kept the embarrassing incident from his parents and never liked Tom afterward, but never forgot to thank anyone again.
• Billy's Wonderful Pony and One Wild MountBilly Johnson acquired Gypsy, an old brown-and-white Shetland pony that was blind in one eye, missing patches of fur, swaybacked, and fat. The children nevertheless admired her as a luxury. While Tom Johnson watched, Billy rode around the peony bushes and then invited everyone to pet her. Ray Rohrer leaped onto her back, alarming the pony and angering Tom. Gypsy was soon returned to her farm because the children could not act civilized around her.
• A Trial Brother for BillyRuth and Tom arranged for an older boy from the local orphanage to be Billy's trial brother, hoping companionship would address what they regarded as a discipline problem. The narrator says the Guilds considered their rules absurdly strict. The boy made realistic crepe paper roses but was more interested in neighborhood girls than in staying home with Billy. He was eventually returned to the orphanage, a parallel the narrator draws to Gypsy's departure.

Referenced in

• Dee's Chapter — MY TEENS
• Carol's Chapter — A PET
• Bob's Chapter — MOST VIVID CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
• Bob's Chapter — RELIGION
• Bernie's Chapter — CARICATURES
• Bernie's Chapter — TOUGH LESSONS
• Bernie's Chapter — GYPSY
• Bernie's Chapter — WELL WATER