Peter R. Johnson

PETER R. JOHNSON, sec­ond of the chil­dren born to Swan and Kjer­stin John­son, was born Octo­ber 19, 1857, in Wiby, Swe­den. In 1868 he came to Amer­i­ca with his par­ents and lived with them two years in Chica­go, eight years at Bement, Illi­nois, then moved to the farm home near Genoa, Nebras­ka.

Being the eldest son, much of the work and much of the respon­si­bil­i­ty fell to him, and he accept­ed it man­ful­ly always.

On March 31, 1885, he joined in mar­riage with Lydia B. Ander­son of Genoa, Nebras­ka, locat­ing at Grant, Nebras­ka, where he engaged in bank­ing. Favor­able years with good crops caused a con­sid­er­able boom in land val­ues and Peter went into it heav­i­ly. This was fol­lowed by drought, defla­tion and depres­sion. The bank closed; busi­ness was at a stand­still, so Peter left Grant and, inci­den­tal­ly, twen­ty-sev­en quar­ter sec­tions of land that he had accu­mu­lat­ed.

They locat­ed at St. Edward, Nebras­ka, where he was engaged in the gen­er­al mer­chan­dise busi­ness for some time, lat­er join­ing in the gen­er­al mer­chan­dise busi­ness with his younger broth­er, Eric, who had pre­vi­ous­ly locat­ed at Genoa, Nebras­ka. Here they oper­at­ed the John­son Broth­ers Gen­er­al Store till his death which occurred at the Swedish Methodist Hos­pi­tal in Oma­ha, Nebras­ka, Feb­ru­ary 11, 1924, from cere­bral hem­or­rhage. He is buried in Val­ley View Ceme­tery, Genoa, Nebras­ka.

Six chil­dren were born to Lydia and Peter John­son: Flo­rence, Mrs. Gladys Pierce, Mrs. Eunice Pen­ningroth, Mrs. Dol­ly Marie Mac­Queen, Deweese and Clif­ford.

Peter was an out­stand­ing cit­i­zen, liked and trust­ed by every­body. At dif­fer­ent times he served as mem­ber of the town board, mem­ber of the school board and sec­re­tary to the board. A good father, a true and sin­cere Chris­t­ian — he was devot­ed to the Methodist Church in Genoa, Nebras­ka.

Flo­rence mar­ried Clif­ford R. Wood and they reside in Glen­dale, Cal­i­for­nia.

Eunice mar­ried Ed Pen­ningroth and they reside in Tip­ton, Iowa, on a farm.

Deweese lives in Peo­ria, Illi­nois, and is affil­i­at­ed with the Ruel­ing & Williams Insur­ance Com­pa­ny.

Gladys mar­ried Dan Pearse, of Genoa, and they are now liv­ing in Gold­en, Col­orado.

Marie, lov­ing­ly nick­named “Doll”, mar­ried Glen Mac­Queen, of Sil­ver Creek, Nebras­ka, and is now liv­ing in Gree­ley, Col­orado.

Clif­ford, the youngest, mar­ried Julia Red­din and is now liv­ing in Cody, Wyoming, where he is in charge of the Stano­lind Oil & Gas Com­pa­ny’s oper­a­tions and office, cov­er­ing a large ter­ri­to­ry.