Mona and Clyde Johnson

l895-l976 l887-l962

By Lou Groves (nee Johnson)

Both the members of this union had a common background in Tennessee: Clyde L. Johnson and Mona Hazel Maynard. Their families lived in the Tennessee river valley and its companion Cumberland river valley. Both of these rivers flowed vast amounts of water that was harnessed to become the famed Tennessee Valley Authority, a massive federal project at the vanguard of a relentless demand for electric power in the 20th century.

The TVA, controversial at its start in the early l930s, provided much of the electric power for work on the atomic bomb project of World War II. Lakes created by a series of dams on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers ultimately covered land on which members of both families had lived for generations.

But while the technology advances of electricity were largely in the future, the Maynard and Johnson families separately looked to a new frontier, the virgin land of Oklahoma Territory, well west of the Mississippi river.

The Tom Johnson family, into which Clyde L. was born on November 8, l887, migrated to the Oklahoma Territory about the turn of the l900s, attracted---as were many Tennesseans---by availability of low cost fertile land in southwestern Oklahoma. Although the Johnson and Maynard families lived in neighboring counties, Clay and Overton, in Tennessee, they were not acquainted until both arrived in Oklahoma, settling in the neighborhood of Granite, in Greer county.

Mona Hazel Maynard was born into the family of Allen and Joanna Howard Maynard on June l6, l895; the family moved to Oklahoma Territory in l906, and Mother recalled marching in a celebration parade when Oklahoma became a state on November 7, l907. Granite became a geographic center for both the Maynard and Johnson families. The Clyde L. Johnson family, with ultimately six children, was to live within 30 crow-flight miles of Granite for all the couple's married life: on the North Fork of the Red River, some eight miles northeast of Granite, and in the neighboring communities of Lone Wolf, Willow, Carter and Hobart.

On graduation from a community school near Granite, no record exists of the number of grades, Daddy went to a regionally well known business school at Chillicothe, Missouri; and on return went to work for a bank in Granite. He and Mother were married in l9l5 and their first child was born on December 2l, l9l6 in Granite: Edward Gillis Johnson.

A family picture of around l9l0-l2 shows Daddy on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, wearing knickers apparently designed for motorcycle travel, a "sport" of the day. He was also a baseball player of some local renown, developing a lifelong love for the game. Somewhere in his youth he developed an enlarged or "athletic" heart that was not detected until his late sixties. When he died in l962, at age 74, heart failure was blamed. If so, he never let this be a problem, working at raising cattle and clearing trees from a cherished tract of pasture land, some 200 acres on the west bank of the North Fork of the Red River in southwest Oklahoma, well past retirement from his professional career.

Grandpa Tom Johnson had provided farms for his several children in Greer and neighboring Kiowa counties; the one Daddy got had the 200 acres on the North Fork---at the east countyline for Greer, and l60 acres of cultivated land a few hundred yards east in Kiowa county. When Gillis was an infant the family moved to this l60 acres, on which there was a residence. Clifton Kathleen Reavis (there is no accounting for that first name) was born there on August 24, l9l8.

The North Fork of the Red River roughly parallels the Greer and Kiowa county line, intersecting it at a point between Daddy's pasture land and the cultivated acreage. For some years near the turn of the nineteenth century the North Fork was judged the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas---rather than the Red River to the south, that was ultimately settled on as the boundary. Old Greer County, Texas, existed for years because of this mistake. This interesting geography today places the 200 acres of pasture land in present Greer county and the cultivated land in Kiowa.

Daddy had been recruited to teach in a school in the community near the farms, and here he found his life's work. Houston Gayle Johnson also was born on the "farm" on September 23, l920. Few school teachers in rural areas had college training in the l920s, but Daddy felt that if he was going to teach he should be properly qualified. In this purpose, the family moved to Weatherford shortly after Houston was born and Daddy gained enough college hours to be issued a lifetime Oklahoma teaching certificate in May, l923. Weatherford was, and is, the home of Southwestern (Oklahoma) Teachers College, today Southwestern State University.

This was a daunting time for Mother: three small children and a fourth on the way. Helen Jo was born in Weatherford on March l7, l923. But the family coped, the teaching certificate was earned and the family moved back to Granite; Daddy taught in the Liberty and Ozark schools near Granite until l928, assuming administrative duties along with his teaching chores, that sometimes included coaching sports. For a short time the family lived in teachers quarters at Liberty, but most of the time lived in Granite. Daddy continued taking college courses in the free time he could manage, and in July, l926, received his bachelor's degree from SWTC.

This was the Roaring Twenties, of a wide open economy. This business climate caught the family up in a mercantile venture that was to color its life for the next l5 years. In partnership with Ed Ellis, another teacher and the husband of mother's younger sister, Hallie, Daddy bought a hardware and farm implement business in Granite in about l926. Uncle Ed ran the business while Daddy continued to teach school. Thelma Louola Johnson was born in Granite June 2l, l925.

The Johnson-Ellis firm ran a substantial credit business that included sales and financing of big-ticket farm implements.

Then Daddy was offered the superintendency of the Lone Wolf schools, some eight miles east of Granite and in Kiowa county, in l928. Clyde L. Johnson, Jr., was born in Lone Wolf shortly after the move there, on December l3, l928, completing the 6-children family. Providentially, all six children are alive and well at this writing, early in 200l.

The Great Depression hit in the fall of l929, heralded by the crash of the New York Stock Exchange. Suddenly there was no available money, anywhere in the country, nor abroad. The Johnson-Ellis firm inevitably was caught up, owing more money to suppliers than it could gather in from its credit rolls. After some traumatic months, maybe as long as two years, the company became insolvent; but still heavily in debt, with its principals liable for the firm's obligations.

The family's assets became encumbered: a nice family home in Lone Wolf, their automobile and, to an extent, the Greer/ Kiowa land. Daddy and Mother bought the house and car back at creditor's sale and mortgaged the farms heavily. This debt was not to be paid off until World War II; the Depression's crippling grip held on for ten terrible years. Daddy had a good salary as superintendent, but meeting the new debt schedules was a trying challenge, especially with the two older children, Gillis and Kathleen, nearing college age.

The family budget was sharply, even cruelly, curtailed further, but things were kept current. And there was much cruelty in The Depression. A Lone Wolf banker, and neighbor, distressed at growing problems in his bank, committed suicide. The paralyzing crunch was exacerbated by a school finance crisis. The State of Oklahoma was unable to meet checks---warrants---issued teachers, in current fiscal years and school people could get cash on these instruments only by discounting them to a bank, which could hold them until state funds were available. A teacher with a paycheck for $l00, in l934, could get cash for it by taking perhaps $90 from a bank. It seems that Daddy and Mother escaped this added money crisis, by squeezing their household budget even tighter; they kept these problems pretty much to themselves and their children today have only fragmentary knowledge of just how tough things were in the l930s.

Lone Wolf had a farm economy, a thriving one before the l930s, but farmers were hit perhaps even harder that decade, by poor or no markets for farm commodities. Inevitably problems of families came to school with students, an added burden for a kindly and concerned superintendent. But, we all remember proudly, the Lone Wolf schools operated fully, with quality personnel who became closeknit in the problems they shared. Friendships from that period lasted through the lives of our parents.

Inevitably, as it does for all school heads, church pastors and others in public life, Daddy's tenure with the Lone Wolf schools ran out, in l936, near the bottom of the Depression. Gillis was in school at Oklahoma A&M and Kathleen was graduating at Lone Wolf and looking to Southwestern State. Daddy and Mother focused on keeping them in college somehow. The Willow schools, a dozen or so miles away and smaller, offered Daddy their superintendency in l936. Probably the salary was less but this fact was not relayed to the children. We moved into a school-owned house in Willow and were there for six pleasant years, until the onset of World Was II prompted the closing of that school in l942. Houston and Helen Jo finished high school in Willow and both attended Mangum Junior College for a time.

In the fall of l942 the Carter schools, a dozen miles north, came looking for a superintendent. Daddy was to complete his school career at Carter l0 years later, in l952. Louola and Clyde L. graduated from Carter High School.

World War II covered the Carter years, with Gillis in Europe and North Africa flying fighter plane protection for bombers; he was credited with shooting down two German planes, and was decorated several times. Houston was in the army in Europe, wounded in Italy in the campaign that led to Germany and to that country's surrender in l945, followed a few months later by Japan's surrender and the end of WWII. The was was a trying time for us all, but we all survived, and gratefully.

As retirement neared, Mother and Daddy were preparing for it on the Greer/Kiowa farms building a large house on the Kiowa place, which they occupied on retirement. Daddy especially enjoyed being able to establish a cattle herd on the pasture land; he spent several years clearing and improving the acres while Mother fretted in the house, fearful that Daddy would overdo his heart.

In the immediate post-war period, Houston and Clyde L. entered and graduated from Oklahoma University, Clyde L. taking naval reserve officer's training; commissioned on graduation, he served a tour during the Korean War. Gillis and Kate finished college before WWII, Gillis at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State Univerwity) and Kate at SWSC.

Late in the l950s, urged by their children, Mother and Daddy had the house moved to Hobart, a few miles away and handier to medical care. As always, they entered wholeheartedly into church work and Daddy taught an adult Sunday School class, as he did in other places. His preparation of lessons was a family ritual, these bringing a historian's perspective to the story of Christianity.

Daddy maintained a lively interest in baseball, through the television in his den, often keeping a box score of games. And there were growing interests in their several grandchildren, some nearing their teens. Then, in his typically quiet way, Daddy died in his den on February 7, l962: the heart which had so splendidly served him, his extended family, the education profession and his Lord for 74 good years, just stopped. The family gathered for his services, and burial in the Hobart cemetery.

Mother continued to live in Hobart for several years, staying active in her church, driving her car as she needed, although she had not learned until well into adulthood. And visiting her children occasionally, in Denver, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Irvington, New York, and in Dumas, Texas. She developed some health worries, and about l970 moved to Dumas and into an apartment complex a short distance from Kate and her Dick Reavis family.

Happily, this complex was home also to several other widows and they formed their own social circle. Mother continued to be faithful in her church, even fervent. In one political campaign she met a candidate for Congress who was a staunch Baptist; asked, on election day, if she planned to vote, she declared stoutly: "I'm going to vote for that Baptist!" It was a better yardstick than most voters applied.

Her Health faded more as she aged, but she retained the positive outlook that had marked her life. The family was exploring retirement homes in the area, over her protests late in l976 when at Christmas she was teased about opening some gifts early. She said, mater-of-factly and uncomplainingly, "I wasn't sure I would be here." Maybe it was a premonition: a few days later she suffered a stroke and was hospitalized, as all the family gathered. She died on December 3l, l976; and after services at Lone Wolf, with two of her grandsons as pall bearers, she was buried in the Hobart cenetery alongside her beloved husband of 47 years.

Theirs was not an unusual life, but notable for their devotion to each other, their family and to their religion. Their loving family could find solace in the words of one of Mother's and Daddy's favorite hymns: "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder I'll be there . . ."