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UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Aaron Colfax was the son of James (1865-1949)and Ivy Martha (BARNHART) JOHNSON (1877 - 1946). Aaron was the second of 15 children of James and Ivy. Aaron's older brother, James, also has a middle name of Aaron. It is rather dd to name consecutive children sharing a name and generally there is a motivation for it, but that will be discussed later.
Aaron had at least 14 siblings:
James Aaron Johnson 1896 – 1979
Mina Eldeen Johnson 1899 – 1979
Henry Johnson ...
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UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Aaron Colfax was the son of James (1865-1949)and Ivy Martha (BARNHART) JOHNSON (1877 - 1946). Aaron was the second of 15 children of James and Ivy. Aaron's older brother, James, also has a middle name of Aaron. It is rather dd to name consecutive children sharing a name and generally there is a motivation for it, but that will be discussed later.
Aaron had at least 14 siblings:
James Aaron Johnson 1896 – 1979
Mina Eldeen Johnson 1899 – 1979
Henry Johnson 1900 – 1901
Mary Susan Johnson 1902 – 1981
Johnny Johnson 1906 – 1906
Earl Ervin Arthur Johnson 1907 – 1998
William Henery Johnson 1908 –
Orin E Johnson 1909 – 1977
Genevieve Ruth (twin) Johnson 1911 – 1960
Jerome (twin) Johnson 1911 – 1996
Elmer William Johnson 1913 – 1996
Francis Geraldine Johnson 1915 – 1994
Annie Laura Johnson 1918 – 1922
Ione Pearl Johnson 1920 – 1922
Aaron and his father James appear not to have been able to get along together very well until later in life. In 1912, Aaron and older brother James both run away from home whee Arron was just 14 years old. Their adventures are well documented in the news article run in the Methow Valley News in 1977, a copy of which is located at the end of this.
Aaron and brother Jim eventually return home but Aaron appears to once again have challenges with father Jim and leaves home again to work for various people in the Methow. The 1920 Census shows Aaron living with Henry Peterson and his wife, Caroline and their Niece Alma Stauff. Mr. Peterson is the President of the local Bank and is a very prominent Methow Valley resident and pioneer. According to the article, Aaron leaves the Mehow, likely with Mr. Peterson, because the water matter is causing a problem with the Valley and work is not available. This will set into motion the single biggest change in Aaron's life.
1920 United States Federal Census about Aaron C Johnson
Name: Aaron C Johnson
[Arron C Johnson]
Age: 21
Birth Year: abt 1899
Birthplace: Washington
Home in 1920: Carlton, Okanogan, Washington
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Employee
Marital Status: Single
Father's Birthplace: United States
[United States of America]
Mother's Birthplace: Washington
Able to Read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Neighbors:
Household Members:
Name Age
Henry Peterson 59
Caroline M Peterson 48
Alma Stauff 29
Aaron C Johnson 21
Aaron's search for work lands him on a farm in Sunnyside, WA. On that farm, working in the kitchen, is his future bride, Emma Ellen Nelson. It must have been love at first sight for the couple, because after 6 short weeks, they marry in Prosser, WA on 27 Oct 1920.
The happy couple first make their home in Grandview, WA., which is where they have their first child, Clarence, in 1921, the only child to be born there. The couple moves a short distance to Sunnyside, WA., where they have their next two children, Karl and Dave.
Aaron catches on with the mill in Kennewick, WA and the family moves there and Aatpn buys a home on 5 acres of land and begins to grow strawberries and other produce to sell. He also leases another 5 acres a short sdistance from the home and also puts it into produce for sale, all teh while continuing his employment at the mill.
The couple also are growing their family, adding Melvin, Dorothy, Donald and Dale in 1927, 1929, 1931 and 1934, respectively.
Things appear to be going along rather well for the family. They are close in proximately to Emma's family and the children have many memories of Mary Ellen Allen Nelson coming to the farm and staying with them. Not all teh memories are pleasant tho, as Donald and Karl both recall: "Mom used to make donuts for us and keep them in the 'doughnut drawer' and we would come in and get a doughnut every once in a while. When Grandma Nelson was visiting us, she would guard the drawer and chase us off".
Things were going along fine for the family in South Kennewick, in the midst of the Great Depression, when one day in 1933, walking up to the house came a man in a long, white beard. Karl add Donald remember this pretty clearly as they thought it was Santa Clause. But this mystery man was not bringing presents, he wanted to talk to their father. After what the two kids remember being a very short conversation, the man left without even a good bye. The wheels of motion had been set into place for Aaron and he would find himself at the precipice of the second major decision of his life, but this one could cost him everything he had worked for over the last 13 years of his life.
Aaron, presumably after discussing the matter with wife Emma, begins to liquidate their holdings in Kennewick over the next several months. In November of the next year, Aaron packs up his family and moves them to the "homestead" in Twisp, WA. where they arrive on Thanksgiving day, 1934. Donald and Karl recall the excursion well: "The drive way to the house was packed in snow. The loaded up car wasn't ale to make it to the top where the house was. WE turned the car around and started to drive it up backwards to get traction. We couldn't make it, so we had to walk up to the house, get a couple of horses, return to the car with them and pull the car up the rest of the way to the house!".
You see, the man whom looked like Santa CLause which appeared that fall day in Kennewick in 1933 was none other thanJim Johnson, Aaron's father. Tings were very difficult for the nearly 70 year old then in the depth of the Depression. His wife, and Aaron's mother, Ivy, had been institutionalized in 1926 at Eastern Washington State Hospital, where she would remain until her death in 1946. Jim had mortgaged the homestead to the Federal Land Bank, an institution now well known for the rather aggressive position it had taken with the farmers that had been forced to borrow money from them during these difficult financial times.
The bank was in the process of foreclosing on Jim Johnson and, as a very last resort, Jim had caught a ride from a friend and had come to Kennewick to see the very son that had turned his back on him so many times in his lifetime. Father was coming to estranged son, begging son to return to the homestead he had run away from at 14. The same son in which, after returning home in 1918, then chose to leave again and live and work for others in the Methow, because of their seemingly incompatible personalities. Father was desperate and coming to the only person that he felt had the ability to pull the homestead out of the death spiral in was in.
Opportunity often disguises itself in times of great strife and trial. In a rare breed, it brings out their inner strength and gives rise to immense fortitude. And still yet, in a fewer instances, when courageous people are positioned by destiny's happenstance to meet with the challenge, heroes are created. Aaron Coldax Johnson was at the door to answer the call when his father was at the lowest point in his lifetime and needed him most.
Aaron risked everything. All the material possessions he and wife Emma had accumulated in their life together. ANd in doing so, he also risked the fabric of the family, as a choice of such epic proportions as this can divide and conquer the best people. Should things not work out, the consequences would be devastating. But Aaron Colfax Johnson wasn't just pitting all his money on red and rolling the roulette wheel, not at all; Aaron was pitting everything he had on his best bet, a bet he knew he wouldn't lose, for he was betting on Aaron Coldax Johnson.
STAY TUNED IN FOR THE NEXT GREAT SEGMENT!!!!!!
They made their home in Kennewick, WA and proceeded to have 8 children of their own.
Clarence Edward Johnson 1921 – 2001
Karl Eugene Johnson 1923 – 2012
Dave Lee Johnson 1925 – 2007
Melvin Laverne Johnson Sr 1927 – 2000
Dorothy Louise Johnson 1929 –
Donald Loren Johnson 1931 –
Dale Richard Johnson 1934 – 2003
Vera Mae Johnson 1935 –
From Methow Valley News June 16, 1977
Aaron Johnson
Aaron Johnson was the second oldest child [of James and Ivy Johnson]. In 1912 when he was fourteen years old he ran away from home with his oldest brother, James. They spent two days and nights up on the hill behind the ranch living on a few raw potatoes they had brought along with them.
The next night they spent hidden in the brush near the place and the fourth day found them up Elbow Coulee, where they built a fire to keep themselves warm. They connected up with a friend and the three of them started walking down the Methow Valley. They walked as far as Methow where the freight wagon lines had a station.
They had only three cents between the three of them so they sold a rifle to the freight wagon man for a mere fifty cents which they used to buy some cheese.
In Pateros they spent the night under a building. From Pateros they walked and hitchhiked in a "rattle-trap of a car" as far as Chelan where they worked for ten days on the Chelan High Line ditch. With the money they earned they got to Wenatchee and caught a freight train to Seattle and Tacoma. They had heard about berry picking near Puyallup, but when Aaron got there he saw that "girls were doing the picking so that was out of my line." Instead, he got a job in a box factory on a machine that made cups for the berries.
At that place he met a boy from Arkansas who persuaded him that they should go up to Seattle where there were plenty of jobs. That wasn't exactly the case.
After working two and a half days at the sawmill, Aaron was canned because he was too small to stack lumber, so he got a job at Fishers Flour Mill, a job which he held for two years. He had told the boss that he was sixteen years old, so he was hired.
Meanwhile Aaron's brother, James, and his friend were living with him in a shack which he was renting at six dollars a month. Since they were finding it difficult getting a job, the three of them were living on the one dollar a day that Aaron was making at the flour mill.
One day they got a notion they wanted to go East. So they headed out for Montana, riding the rails as hundreds of other people did at that time.
Aaron became proficient at jumping and riding the freight trains; he rode in coal tenders and gondolas and sidecar Pullmans. He rode on top of coaches and in the blinds. "In the blinds" means you ride in the first car behind a coal tender. It is a dangerous place to be since it expands
and contracts as the train ascends or descends hills. "Gee, it was cold up there in the mountains," he remembers. When the train stopped to take on water, a man saw Aaron. A little later the fireman came back to tell him he could come and ride up in the engine. "They thought I would
have frozen to death up there, I guess. They even dropped me off before we got onto the next town so the yard bulls wouldn't get me."
"Running and jumping onto a moving train isn't dangerous, if you know how," says Aaron evenly. "I was once kicked off a train in the mountains between Seattle and Wenatchee, and I just hoofed the next one when it came through."
When the three boys pulled into Sheridan, Wyoming, riding in a box car full of apples, they decided to go and check out the town. They left their gear in the car in the safekeeping of a man who rode the apple cars specifically to build fires in them if the temperature got too low.
When they returned to the tracks they looked up and down but couldn't find their train.
It had moved on, taking their belongings with it. They walked back into the town and spent ten days working in a sugar beet factory.
In Great Falls, Montana, they hayed on an 8,000 acre cattle ranch. By this time winter was coming on and they decided to come back to Washington. As they stood at the boxcar doors watching the land roll by, the snow was falling and they could see elk running away from the train. In one town they spent the night in the jail house, since that was the
warmest place to stay.
Aaron came back to the Methow Valley and attempted to work on his Father's ranch.
Instead, he ended up working for other ranchers around the valley. Later, he went down to Grandview with a team and wagon with a man he had worked for up there. When he was down there working he met and married Emma E. Nelson, who was helping cook for the ranch crew.
For years Aaron and Emma lived down in Sunnyside and Kennewick, working at various jobs. For a time he drove a Watkins wagon and peddled items door to door like coffee and spices and cold medicine, lineament, vanilla and tonics. He worked in the flour mill in Kennewick for
two years, and bought five acres and raised strawberries, (which sold for ten cents a crate), and asparagus. He and Emma had eight children.
In 1934 he and his family moved back to the Methow Valley and took over his father's ranch. By selling the cattle he was able to pay off the mortgages that had proliferated over the years. James Johnson had begun with the allotted 160 acres, but as land around had been offered for back taxes, he had acquired hundreds of acres.
Says Elmer, "he kept buying around and buying around and then it kept getting drier and drier during the twenties so that he just couldn't grow enough to pay the taxes. He even had to take other jobs to try and keep the place going. He was mortgaged clear to the gills."
Aaron and his wife and eight children made a good success of farming the place, and at the same time he worked in the sawmill and walked the ditch.
He finally sold the ranch in the fifties. He then acquired 160 acres up the Twisp River and put sixteen of them into orchard.
"Work," he says, "it's just in me. You just go along, day by day, that's all there is to it."
Aaron still plants a garden every year and does all his own canning.
"They don't make worlds any better than this one, but when it comes to humans we're not made as good. When I was young I could do anything in the world. I was high strung. But when your blood starts running cold you can't do what you used to."
The adventures of Aaron's full life are behind him now, and as he sits tall and straight in his chair he looks as if he would do it all over again the same way. He would, once again, fly through the black nights in the mountains in the tops of solitary freight trains.
(Ironically, Aaron would take his own life 13 months later on 11 July 1978 at age 79, 67 years to the day after his twin siblings, Jerome and Genevieve, were born)
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