MOTHER AND GRANDMA JOHNSON

Old Trunks was talking about Ella, (Ellen) Evanson Johnson in a post titled, FOUR MISSING DAUGHTERS. If you missed it, it was about a mother who had five pregnancies in four years with one child living, and proceeded to have three more, for a total of eight.

Here is mother sitting on the table next to Mae's mother. The picture appears to be taken when mother was about six. Nineteen twenty two plus six equals 1928. Ella Johnson was born in 1880, that makes her 48 or so in this picture. It is possible someone wanted a picture of Ella, who celebrated her birthday on the third of August.

When looking at old pictures of family and friends, look closely at the back ground. Most of you have the option of making the photo or parts of the photo bigger to gain detail.

The picture offered today does just that. We know when we look at the picture, the subjects are tan, in this part of the country, that means summer. When we look at the calendar, we can see the month is greater than four letters. We can see the first Saturday is 4. When using perpetual calendars to date photos, in this case, the picture was taken in August of 1928 because the perpetual calendar states it to be so.

We can see the walls were papered and that someone in the house was a Christian, as there is a picture of Jesus on the cross although her funeral was held at Green's Funeral Chapel. A few seashells and a mustache cup on a chest of drawers covered by a cloth is pictured.

These were poor folks. The house pictured was in Excel Township. If you look very closely at the back ground in the photo of mother at twelve holding the dog, you can see a railroad car. Obviously the house was a shack. It is possible the two barrels were set to catch the rain off the roof. The water pump stands open and the geese and chickens peck away. It is not known if the garage-like building actually held a car.

It was the thirties yet even the other picture of mother and Ella does not offer anything to make me think there was much cash flow.

As for Excel Township of Marshall County, the only map Old Trunks has in 1909 and we know from the obituary the family didn't move there until 1915. However the township map does offer where the railroad passed giving us a general idea of where they lived.

For those of us who had running water in the house, it is hard to understand the concept of carrying water bucket by bucket and heating it to wash, cook, and bathe. We are aware our ancestors did not use resources as we do today. We know they had gardens for vegetables and chickens to cook.

On the oldest picture of mother and of Mae's mother, mother was 14. Look again and the changes from just 8 years of Ella Johnson. From 48 to 56, she aged out like a very, very old woman. Yet, she lived another thirty years.

Shivering thought, isn't it?

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