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Harry Johnson's grandchildren hope he always
stays the same, says Frances, his wife of 49
years. They love the stories he tells of
youthful pranks and of his Naval career that
spanned the years of both the Korean and Vietnam
wars. |
Harry was transplanted from Alabama to Bemis,
Tennessee when he was seven years old. There the
combined family that included his younger sister plus
his stepsister and stepbrother worked on the family farm
where Harry milked 50 cows before and after school.
As a teen he moved into the new Northside High School in
Jackson when the cafeteria's floor was still dirt. "They
hadn't got through building it yet," explains Harry, who
along with other shop students had a hand in completing
the building project.
Aside from shop classes, Harry also studied agriculture.
In his spare time, he was known for a mischievous streak
that has prevailed over the years, in fact, at his 50th
high school reunion three years ago he and another
student shared the honor of who had changed the least.
"I got into few little things, I had a little fun with
it you know," he says, slightly discomfited, with a
quick laugh.
He went to school one day with a pocketful of marbles,
for instance, placing one in each hole workers had begun
drilling the day before, where steel rods would be
placed to add strength to the structure.
"They tried to drill the holes deeper and they wouldn't
drill," Harry relates off-handedly as would an innocent
bystander. He was called to the office where the
principal informed him, "I know you didn't do this, but
I'll bet you can find a way to get those marbles out."
"I got blamed for everything that happened," he says,
whereupon Frances reminds him of the poem he wrote on
the blackboard concerning a teacher who had "sinus
problems".
"Out in the garden picking peas, I thought I heard Mrs.
Rollins sneeze," he had written.
"She took one look at that and sent me to the office,"
Harry protests.
He joined the Navy two weeks after his 1950 graduation,
where he put his high school skills as a trumpet player
to work as a bugler for the Navy Bugle Corps.
"We got to go to every carnival, fair, and football
game," Harry says stridently, explaining his motive for
joining the squad. He'd never played a bugle prior to
his audition, a fact that wasn't missed by the corps'
officer who demanded, "Johnson, tell me, you've never
played a bugle before have you?"
"No, Sir," he admitted.
"Well you did a darn good job of it," the officer
acknowledged.
"I played the harmonica, too; that made it easy," grins
Harry, explaining the mechanics of playing the
instruments.
Johnson headed for Korea aboard LST 825 immediately
following boot camp and engineering school, and also
served on a converted LST (landing ship tank) repair
ship for a time during his first four years of Navy
life.
Harry then returned to civilian life for about three
months, long enough to meet Frances Smith, the younger
sister of the girl who was dating his friend, in
Jackson. Frances played hard to get, rebuffing messages
sent through her sister, then pondered his daily
entreaties for two weeks before accepting his offer for
a date after her mother advised her to give him an
answer one way or other.
Like Harry, Frances had grown up "chopping and picking
cotton, picking corn and strawberries." Her father had
died when she was six years old and all the children had
to pitch in and help as her mother struggled to raise
seven children alone.
Although the family got by on very little, Frances says,
"She gave us the right sense of values and love; she
taught us to be good Christians in other words. She kept
us a close family and we remain close."
By the time the couple married on August 8, 1954 in a
double wedding - when Frances was three months shy of
her sixteenth birthday - Harry had rejoined the Navy and
was stationed as a Seabee at Little Creek Virginia.
There, the couple's first daughter, Linda, was born on
June 13, 1955.
The three-year assignment was followed by a two-year
tour of duty in Beeville, Texas, a locale Frances
recalls was "dry, dusty, and hot with crickets
everywhere."
"We learned to like it okay," she relents after
describing inch-thick sand on the inside of window sills
following sandstorms and "blue northers" that caused the
temperature to fall 40 degrees in an hour.
The Johnson's son Robert was born November 20, 1957, two
months into the south Texas experience.
"We'd take the kids fishing, we were going fishing all
the time it seems like," Frances reminisces. "We tried
to plant a garden and the kids got out there and dug it
all up. We went to Mexico several times."
Harry chuckles, his expression reflecting "What did I
do?" as Frances feigns indignation upon recalling he had
convinced her the goat carcasses hanging in the markets
were dogs.
"I didn't see any dogs anywhere," Frances defends her
gullibility, then declares, "He's good at pulling little
jokes on people."
After Texas, the family spent seven years in San Diego,
California, where Donna was born September 12, 1960.
"When he left to make his first cruise on the (U.S.S.)
Seminole our daughter was only two months old and when
he came back she was walking and talking," says Frances.
She and the other children taught the baby about her
daddy through photographs during his absence.
Known as a troubleshooter, Harry was assigned to repair
the engine of LST 1073, named U.S.S. Outagamie County,
prior to her mid-1960s Alaskan mission.
"It hadn't been running for two years; it had been
sabotaged," says Harry, explaining metal filings put
into the diesel tank had jammed the engine.
He began a series of tedious maneuvers, removing the
injectors, flushing them out and replacing them every
ten minutes until the debris was completely removed.
"She started running good after about a week and a
half," he says.
When the fuel pump "blew up" during the support mission
among the Aleutian Islands, with no spare available,
Harry fashioned a fuel pump by welding brackets to the
syrup pump of a coke machine. "They never sent a new one
the whole time we were in the Aleutians," he says.
The family moved to Whitfield, Virginia for Harry's next
mission as a recruiter. "That's no easy job," he
declares; nevertheless, after the Navy advised he had
"recruited everybody out of that town" he was promoted
to the Roanoke Recruiting Station and became Recruiter
of the Year on February 19, 1969.
"We lived in Rural Retreat; we loved it there," smiles
Frances, recalling good times with friends made during
the three year assignment.
Frances and the children then moved to Hawaii, where
Harry was based during three cruises to Vietnam aboard
gasoline tanker 0G7.
"We took gas up the river in Vietnam and supplied gas
for aviation within two miles of fighting," relates
Harry, showing a picture of the big tanker. In
audiotapes sent home, Frances says she could hear bombs
and grenades exploding nearby.
When the "screws" were knocked off the propeller of the
big ship during one operation, the ship's captain
advised the Admiral that, with two weeks left on the
mission, he believed the ship should proceed. The
Admiral consulted Senior Chief Johnson, however, who
advised that, with one blade left, the ship's estimated
speed was only three knots, and that the vibration was
likely to tear the strip-bearing out.
The Admiral instructed Johnson to make way to the
Philippines - some 300 miles away - come morning.
"We made it to the Philippines," says Harry, who made
one more trip to Vietnam during which, mid-mission, he
disembarked in the Philippines, from which he flew to
San Francisco to complete his final five to six weeks of
duty before retiring in 1971.
In the meantime, Frances and the children had returned
to Tennessee just after Christmas, arriving from Hawaii
to "snow and cold."
The family lived with Harry's mother, Hallie
Weatherspoon, in the home he had built for her in 1969,
while he studied refrigeration and air conditioning at
the vocational-technical school in McKenzie and built a
home next door on land purchased almost a decade
earlier.
"We built this house with our own hands; all of us had a
hand in this," says Frances.
Harry worked as a service technician for Sears for ten
years before the McKenzie and Huntingdon stores closed.
Rather than drive to Jackson to work, he established his
own business, Johnson Appliance Repair, which still
keeps him busy.
"Next year I'm pretty sure I'm going to retire," says
Harry, who is now, unbelievably, 73 years old. Frances
currently demonstrates food items at the Wal-Mart store
in Huntingdon.
Harry and Frances' farm has grown from its original 40
acres to 106 acres, where, she says, "we have dogs and
cows, mostly cows" and always have a garden.
Harry joined the Loyal Order of Moose in Paris in 1974
and is a lifetime member of the VFW in Hollow Rock.
In 1976, Frances complemented Harry's Moose membership
by joining Women of the Moose. "We've made a lot of good
friends and had a lot of fun along the way," says
Frances, recalling trips to international conventions in
Toronto, Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New
Orleans among others, plus spring and fall conventions
in Cookville.
Harry is now treasurer of the Moose Lodge in Paris and
Frances is secretary/treasurer of Women of the Moose. He
received his pilgrim's degree 1999, the highest order of
ordinary Moose membership.
Recently, Harry and fellow Moose member Joe Allen of
Paris transported two local children to Moosheart,
Illinois, a 1,000-acre residential childcare facility
located 38 miles west of Chicago. The "child city"
serves children from infancy through high school whose
families are unable to care for them. Since 1913 the
Moose organization, through Mooseheart, has provided
children with "a wholesome home-like environment and the
best possible training and education." According to its
Website, the Mooseheart campus has its own homes,
schools, cathedral, farm, health center, stores, post
office and utilities.
"It makes a tremendous difference in those children's
lives," says Harry, who spent a few days in Illinois to
make sure the children were settled in well before
returning home.
The Moose Lodge provided scholarships to two of the
Johnson grandchildren: April Hampton and Lauren
McDonald.
The couple also enjoys gardening, fishing, and traveling
"when we have time," says Frances, who is looking
forward to a trip to Branson, Missouri soon.
Their farm pond is stocked with catfish that have grown
to 30 pounds. "We feed them; I don't know if we have
them trained or they have us trained," she grins.
The couple has been members of Prospect Baptist Church
in Hollow Rock for over 30 years during which Frances
has missed one year of working for Vacation Bible School
and also sings in the choir. "I'm here to tell you God
works in mysterious ways and prayers are answered,"
affirms Frances, who is currently enduring chemotherapy
for a tumor.
The couple's future plans include building a sun porch
onto their home where they can sit and relax and enjoy
the many beautiful flowers and plants that grace the
Johnson home.
But their fondest pastime is spending time with their
family.
"We have a lot of fun when our family gets together,"
says Frances, enumerating their nine grandchildren, two
step-grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
"They're every one precious; we wouldn't take anything
for them," she says. "Harry and I both have a special
relationship with each one of the grandchildren. We
think we have a wonderful family."
Displaying photographs of Linda's three children
(Lauren, Shawna and Casey), Robert's four (Jeremy,
Jessie, April and Jennifer), and Donna's children
(Justin and Nina), Frances admits she and her husband
have "attractive grandchildren", all of whom excel in
school, but declares, "It's what's inside that is most
important."
"We've been blessed with family and friends - we're rich
in family and friends alone," she says, "We just try to
do out best and let the Lord take over the rest and
treasure every moment we have with our children and
grandchildren." |
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