William Johnson (1884 - 1982)

Born 10 Dec 1884 in Herbst, Grant, Indiana, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Ethel Henderson — married Jan 1910 in Wayne

Husband of Edith Kezia Lloyd — married 18 Mar 1962 in Fairmount, Grant, Indiana

Descendants

Died 15 Apr 1982 at age 97 in Marion, Grant County, IN

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Allen McGrew [send private message]

Biography

Will was born in Herbst, Indian on December 10, 1884, to Barclay Johnson and Sylvia Anna Lindley,^[1]. On the same day he was born, his family closed on a new farm west of Fairmount, Indiana that he would eventually inherit, expand and pass down to his children and grand children. Will was the seventh of 10 children, and according to a family story, his father having run out of name ideas and being busy with the farm transaction, the family decided to pass around a hat and everybody would put in a name, the first drawn was to be his first name and the second would be his middle name. The first drawn name was "Pocahontas" placed in the hat as a jest by a hired hand and the second was "Willie" entered by one of his older sisters. He went by "Will" throughout his childhood years and only adopted the more formal "William" as he entered adulthood.

Both Will's parents were educators, and coming from a Quaker family that supported equality between the sexes, they placed great emphasis on the education of both their sons and their daughters. In fact, the impetus for the purchase of the farm near Fairmount was to take advantage of the opportunity to educate their children of both genders at the highly regarded Fairmount Friends Academy ^[2]. Like his siblings, Will obtained an education at the Fairmount Friends Academy, graduating in the early 1900's, and subsequently lived for a time with his older sister, Alice, and her husband Charles Weeks on their newly acquired farm in Los Altos, California. He was living in the Bay Area at the time of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and in subsequent years reported that his reaction was,"It will have to shake harder than this to get me out of bed." He subsequently obtained work in the reconstruction of the nearby city of San Francisco.

After his time in California, Will returned to Indiana to complete his education at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he earned a B.S. in 1910 ^[3]. Following graduation, was married to fellow Earlham graduate, Ethel Henderson, in Richmond, Indiana on September 1, 1910, and the new couple soon moved to Newberg, Oregon, where Will had accepted a job teaching at George Fox College ^[4]. However, neither his marriage nor his employment at George Fox College were destined to last long. He soon fell afoul of the conservative mores of the more evangelical Oregon Quaker school by teaching the Theory of Evolution in his science classes, and he ended his employment there after just one year. His wife Ethel (who suffered from diabetes) passed away on his birthday, Dec. 10, 1916.

Will once again returned to Indiana where he taught science at Indianapolis Arsenal Technical High School. While teaching at Arsenal Technical, Will met and ultimately married a young math teacher, Mary Roy Thomson. They married on June 28, 1922, and together raised a family of four children: John Barclay, Mary Sylvia, Janet Elizabeth, and William Hilton. The family spent summers on the family farm that his parents had closed on the day that he was born and that he had since inherited by buying out the shares of his siblings. After striving to make ends meet through the Great Depression with assistance from his parents-in-law, Will was finally able to clear the mortgage on the farm by double cropping through the strong farm economy of World War II. After the war the farm was further expanded in part with an inheritance from Will's uncle, Erasmus C. Lindley.

Following Mary Roy's premature death due to brain cancer, Will remarried once again on March 18, 1962, this time to Edith Kezia Lloyd, a long-time friend from his hometown of Fairmount, Indiana. Will and Edith lived happily together for the next 20 years until Will eventually passed away while in a nursing home in Marion, Indiana at the age of 97 on April 15, 1982.

Name

Will /Johnson/^[5]

William /Johnson/^[6]

Found multiple versions of NAME. Using Will /Johnson/.

Birth

10 DEC 1884

Grant, Indiana, USA^{[7][8][9][10]}

1885

Indiana^[11]

Found multiple copies of BIRT DATE. Using 10 DEC 1884

Residence

1910

Fairmount, Grant, Indiana^[12]

01 APR 1940

Indianapolis, Marion, Indiana, United States^[13]

Object

@M24@

@M27@

@M33@

Marriage

FAM

@I7@

@I134@

JAN 1910

Wayne^[14]

FAM

@I13@

@I14@

@I146@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I145@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I144@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I143@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I142@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I141@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I7@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I137@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I140@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I139@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

@I138@

to Father: Natural

to Mother: Natural

11 FEB 1871

, Wayne, Indiana, USA^[15][16]

@M88@

Sources

1. ↑ U.S. Army, Certificate of Discharge, 1919
2. ↑ Family tradition, entered by Allen McGrew, June 16, 2018
3. ↑ Who's Who Among Earlhamites
4. ↑ The American Friend, Oct. 6, 1910, p. 641
5. ↑ Source: #S2 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for Sylvia Ann Lindley
6. ↑ Source: #S1 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for William Johnson
7. ↑ Source: #S1 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for William Johnson
8. ↑ Source: #S2 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for Sylvia Ann Lindley
9. ↑ Source: #S8 Page: Database online. Fairmount, Grant, Indiana, ED , roll T624_351, part , page . Data: Text: Record for Barclay Johnson Object: @M8@
10. ↑ Source: #S10 Page: Database online. Title: , , ; Book: ; Page: . Data: Text: Record for William Johnson
11. ↑ Source: #S13 Page: Database online. Year: 1940; Census Place: Indianapolis, Marion, Indiana; Roll: T627_1122; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 96-1. Data: Text: Record for William Johnson Object: @M15@
12. ↑ Source: #S8 Page: Database online. Fairmount, Grant, Indiana, ED , roll T624_351, part , page . Data: Text: Record for Barclay Johnson Object: @M8@
13. ↑ Source: #S13 Page: Database online. Year: 1940; Census Place: Indianapolis, Marion, Indiana; Roll: T627_1122; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 96-1. Data: Text: Record for William Johnson Object: @M15@
14. ↑ Source: #S10 Page: Database online. Title: , , ; Book: ; Page: . Data: Text: Record for William Johnson
15. ↑ Source: #S2 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for Sylvia Ann Lindley
16. ↑ Source: #S2 Page: Database online. Data: Text: Record for Barclay Johnson

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Allen McGrew for starting this profile.

Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by Allen and others.

• Source: S1 Author: Ancestry.com Title: OneWorldTree Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Repository: #R1
• Repository: R1 Name: www.ancestry.com Address: E-Mail Address: Phone Number:
• Source: S10 Author: Ancestry.com Title: Indiana Marriage Collection, 1800-1941 Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2005; Repository: #R1
• Source: S13 Author: Ancestry.com Title: 1940 United States Federal Census Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2012; Repository: #R1 NOTEUnited States of America, Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940
• Source: S2 Author: Ancestry.com Title: Public Member Trees Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2006; Repository: #R1
• Source: S8 Author: Ancestry.com Title: 1910 United States Federal Census Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2006; Repository: #R1 NOTEUnited States of America, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1910

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Allen McGrew for creating WikiTree profile Johnson-17794 through the import of McGrew_2010-01-09_2013-03-22.ged on Mar 22, 2013.

Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Allen and others.