Merced County Biographies

JOHN JOHNSON

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
        Sterling personal characteristics accompanied by exceptional skill in 
repairing automobiles have been the key to success of the garage conducted by 
John Johnson in Irwin. Being a strong, active, able and intelligent young man of 
strict integrity and an expert machinist, he is able to provide all the needs of 
an automobile, from repairing and all the accessories to oil and gas.
        A son of Olof and Marie Johnson, he was born near central Sweden, August 
24, 1886. Olof Johnson was employed by the Ovre Ulerud Railway and is living 
retired on a pension, aged sixty-four. His mother had three children: Eugene, a 
commercial traveler of Stockholm, Sweden; John; and the third child was Hannah 
Marie, who is still single in Sweden. She miraculously escaped death in a 
railway accident in which her mother was killed, John then being four or five 
years old. The father married again and the boy was brought up by his stepmother 
and was educated in the public and church schools and confirmed in the Lutheran 
Church. In 1909 he came to America and, arriving in Fort Wayne, Ind., he 
obtained work as a machinist.
        The son John sailed for the United States on the White Star line from 
Gottenburg, in August, 1909. Passing through England from Hull to Liverpool he 
embarked again and arrived at Ellis Island, N. Y., in the latter part of August 
of the same year. He worked three years in the railway shops of the Wabash 
Railway in Fort Wayne, Ind., and from there he went to Oakland, Cal., in 
September, 1912. After working around in several automobile shops he engaged 
with the Scandinavian Gas Engine Works, builders of the celebrated Scandinavian 
Marine Engines. At the same time he attended the night school provided by the Y. 
M. C. A. course in mechanical engineering and became a member of the Y. M. C. A. 
of Oakland, Cal. He could not speak English when he first arrived in America, 
but he acquired the language by self study.
        John Johnson was married in Oakland to Miss Clara Larson, a native of 
Minnesota, and they came to Irwin in 1917. They have two children, Stanford and 
Florence. Mrs. Johnson is a daughter of Fred and Christina Larson, who own forty 
acres in Hilmar. They had five children, Alice, Arthur, Clara, Carl and Anna. 
Mrs. Larson died in the spring of 1924. When the Johnsons first came here in 
1917 they farmed for three years, but in 1920 Mr. Johnson came to Irwin and 
bought his garage which he has run successfully ever since. They are both 
members of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church in Hilmar, and live in Irwin 
in the Hilmar Colony. Mr. Johnson has no choice as to political parties, but 
votes for principle and men of principle.
 
History of Merced County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 814-815