Oliver Guy Johnson--Part Two

The Pre-Marriage Years

I went to the Benson School until 1908 and then I went to the old Woodruff School where I graduated at mid-year from the 8th grade, being one out of eleven boys and one girl. This was as far as the public school went at that time. I registered at the Brigham Young College for the rest of the year. In the summer I worked on the farm with my father, brothers and sisters. We all had to work in the beet fields and milk cows. The next year I went to the B.Y.C. and in the summer I worked on the farm.

I was ordained a Teacher by Joseph Grew on December 28, 1908. I attended B.Y.C. in the winter of 1909 and 1910, and also attended U.S.A.C. in 1910.

In the spring of 1910, I went to Blue Creek for the first time with my brother-in-law, Richard Roskelley, and helped him clear forty acres of sagebrush. He plowed it with four head of horses on a sulky plow and I picked the sagebrush up and piled it and burned it. I went from Blue Creek to Smithfield with Samuel Roskelley and his wife, Maggie, and son, Martin, in a white top buggy. I stayed with my sister, Hilda, in Smithfield that night and the next morning I left for Blue Creek with four head of horses for Samuel Roskelley. The three horses were tied together and I rode the other with just an old quilt for a saddle. It was the hardest horse back ride I have ever had in my life, about sixty miles. I worked for Samuel Roskelley for eleven days at $1 a day.

In 1911, I attended U.S.A.C. winter quarter. I went to Blue Creek and helped my brother-in-law, Richard Roskelley, harvest his wheat. I drove a team on a header box. I walked over the land which was to be my Blue Creek farm. My father went out to Blue Creek and looked at the land which was to be our farm and then he went to Brigham City and filed a homestead claim.

I was ordained a Priest by Andrew Eliason, January 9, 1911. I also joined the 4th Ward choir this year with Robert M. Smith as the leader.

My brother James came home from his mission in 1912. I went to Blue Creek with a load of hay and grain and then came back and my brother James and I went back with a plow and five head of horses and started to plow up the sagebrush. After about a week, James got sick and I had to take him home. I went the short cut by Blind Springs to Fielding and made it in one day. The next day I hitched up the team and went back to Blue Creek. I was out there alone for about ten days and then James came back and we worked together. One would plow and the other would pile sagebrush so it could be burned. We plowed about forty acres just north of where the house now stands. Then we came home and put up the hay. We bought a drill and went out alone and planted the wheat in the fall. James worked on a horsepower thresher.

In the fall of 1913, we harvested our first crop of wheat in Blue Creek, which was 1600 bushels of wheat. I also fenced part of the Blue Creek farm. I cut the posts in the holler just west of the farm. We bought a header and two header boxes and had a thresher thresh the grain. This was the year, 1913, that I met the girl that was later to become my wife, (how lucky.) I did some work on a horsepower thresher in my father’s place. I did the measuring with a half bushel. James went out to Blue Creek and planted our crop and hauled the wheat to Lampo, a fifteen mile trip each way for 60¢ a bushel.

In 1914, I again farmed in Blue Creek and broke up more of our ground and cleared the sagebrush off. I also started to see my future wife a little more often. I worked on a threshing machine with C. A. Nyman, Golden Nyman, A. B. Nyman, Parley Cronquist and A. L. King, in the fall of 1914. I was also ordained an Elder, February 9, 1914, by O. H. Budge.

We farmed in Blue Creek in the spring of 1915. We had been staying to our neighbors, and traveling up to our farm to work. But this year we had a water tank built and moved up on our farm and pitched our tent about where the house now stands and built a net wire corral where the corral now stands.

In 1916, I got a job at the Logan Post Office during the Christmas rush as a mail carrier and stayed on until late spring. I carried the mail on a route that took in all homes north of 2nd North and west of 2nd East. I was asked to take the exam and get a permanent appointment, but I had my farm in Blue Creek and thought I would stay with farming.

After James and I had moved out to Blue Creek, I took a team and wagon and went back into Tremonton and got a load of lumber for the first house we had on the farm. I got a load of gravel out of the wash and mixed concrete for the foundation and built the floor. Then we moved the stove on the floor and James went home. I stayed there alone and plowed and hauled water for our horses and for the camp. I would build a little at noon while the horses would rest and then a little bit more at night until I finally got it built. I was so proud and happy.

Next installment: Early Married Life and the Army Years