JOHNSON HISTORY FAMILY MANUSCRIPTS

OUR PIONEER MOTHER
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CHAPTER VI

OUR CHATSWORTH HOME

      In the year of 1874 we moved once more and for the last time until forty years later. We took up one hundred sixty acres of the wildest government land in the hills back of what is now the town of Chatsworth.
      All the land was covered with high dense chapparel, so we had to take axes and cut our way through. We found one small clear spot where there was a small winter lake.
      Here we built a temporary house and dug a well.
      One day while digging the well, I sent Will up to the creek for a pail of water. I waited a reasonable length of time for his return, but he did not come, so I sent Charles to tell him to hurry home, but Charles did not return, then I sent faithful little Lenora to tell those boys to come quickly. Again I waited but there was no sign of any children, so I went myself to see what the trouble was.
      What did I see? Three lovely children, - back to nature, on a warm summer day, bathing in a wild mountain stream. My three little bears (bare), I named them.
      They saw me coming and away they ran without their clothes. In a minute all were out of sight. Will ran home and was down in the well at work when I reached home. The other children went back to the pool, dressed, and soon came home bringing Will's clothes.
      While living here, my husband and other members of the family had diphtheria. I was nurse and doctor. I massaged their bodies with oil, bandaged their throats with slices of bacon, and gave them olive oil to drink. Soon all were as well as ever. Some of us had scarlet fever, but of a very light form.
      Here in this upland valley in the year of 1874 began the great work of turning these one hundred sixty acres of mountain wildness into a real a abiding home, and a life-giving farm.
      About sixty acres was level land, and all this had to be cleared of the wild growth, so the whole family, except the two babies, worked on an acre or two at a time. The brush was cut and burned. Then the land was ploughed and the roots turned up. these were gathered day by day, week by week. Any working day you might have seen us all out "picking up roots."
      When the roots were dry, Neils hauled them to Los Angeles and sold them for firewood.
      In the year of 1876 we built a substantial house of eight rooms, which was situated at the foot of the great rocky hills, where an ever-living spring of water bubbled forth.
      The clearing of the land continued for months and even years.
      When one acre was cleared, it was planted, then another acre was worked over and planted, then another and another, till the sixty acres of level land was covered with fruitful orchards, thriving vineyards, waving grain fields, luscious vegetables, and blossoming flowers.
      Ducks and chickens wandered at will in the barnyards and the meadows, and the contented cattle roamed over the hills.
      When he could leave the work on the farm my husband would haul wool and grain to Los Angels from the big ranches in the San Fernando Valley.
      Our nearest neighbor, a fine Spanish family, lived at the foot of the hills. The other families, few and scattered, were either Mexican or Indian. I was the first white English-speaking woman in the San Fernando Valley.
      Our Post Office and trading posts were at Los Angeles, thirty miles away.
      There was no school within ten miles of us, so in the evenings I taught the children their "Primer" and helped them with writing and spelling.
      In this little evening school of ours, we did not know what "gopher" and what "sycamore" spelled.
      My husband knew no more than I of reading and spelling, yet in his later life he learned to read so well that he read the Bible over and over again, and memorized great portions of it. Neils and I kept gaining knowledge as we taught the children.
      As the girls grew older, they went to live with families in Los Angeles so that they could go to school, and one by one, each was happily married.
      Ten years after the birth of our little daughter, Emma, our son Norman Carvin Johnson was born, January 29, 1884, at Los Angeles. I had plenty of care and comfort, and a doctor, and Hanna to nurse me. Two years later, the last of our children was born; a son, Oliver Eastman Johnson, June 26, 1885, at our home in Chatsworth hills.
      In the year of 1880 a school was established in Chatsworth, and Miss Mary Gower of Hollywood was the first teacher. I was clerk of the board of trustees the first few years.
      Back in 187 our little blue-eyed, sunny-haired, laughing son, Walter, passed away to his heavenly home. We buried him there in the hills at the foot of a giant rock, which stand as an everlasting monument.
      A union Sunday school was started, which later became Methodist, and a church was established. I never became a member, for I am a Baptist, as are a number of the family, yet I put my whole heart and soul into the work and worship of this little Methodist church and Sunday School. At the present time, (1919), I have a married people's Sunday School Class, which is very dear to my heart. It is my pride and my love.
      A branch road of the Southern Pacific was built from Los Angeles to Chatsworth about 1891, and later, 1904, the great tunnel was built through the Santa Susanna mountains, and thus gave us a through line to all points North.
      The years have been long hard years, as we have pioneered and "blazed" our way, but they have been years filled with much of joy and happiness, and great blessings. Well behaved children, grown up full of health and strength. Sons and daughters returning "home" for visits, bringing their children to enjoy the wonders of the hills and to see "Dear Grandmother." friends driving or riding horseback, coming up for a picnic. Parties to go hill-climbing. Bathing parties to frolic in our big open pool.
      So life went on for forty year up on our mountain ranch.
      In later years, because thriving little farms with their orchards had opened up in the valley of Chatsworth, the income from our ranch grew less, so my husband went to San Jacinto to see what work he could find. that left me and my three younger children to take charge of the ranch.
      Then my daughter Emma was married, and later, my son Norman. this left my youngest son with me, and we two carried the burden of "running" the ranch. Then Eastman, wished to do telephone line work, so I rented the ranch and went to live in the valley in a home built for me by the sons and daughters. Meanwhile my husband was at Monrovia with my daughter Christine. He was taken ill with pneumonia, and on June 4, 1914, passed away.
      He was a loving husband, a kind father , honest and upright. He never drank, and he never smoked, so the two of us training together, brought up our children to be clean, wholesome, honest, God-loving, law-abiding men and women, and they in their turn are thus training their children.
      In my pleasant little home in the valley, I spent many happy days with my children and my grandchildren, and the great grandsons and daughters, and all the sincere loving friends.
      My heart often turns to our mountain ranch with its far-reaching view, with its ragged wildness, and with its Old Rock Face, - the George Washington Rock, - so dear to us all; and I sometimes long to be living there, for that is the home, the real home which the whole family, working together, built and nourished.

      "My dear children, the years of life have sometimes seemed hard, but we have always been under God's loving watchful care. He has led us all along the way and has richly blessed us.
      "My dear sons and daughters I leave you all in God's wise and tender care."

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      "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
      "My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
      "The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
       time forth, and even forevermore. - Psalms 121."

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On March 19, 1920, after a short illness, Ann Willden Johnson passed to her reward. During her last days she was constantly surrounded by her nine sons and daughters and many of her grandchildren. She wanted them all with her, and as they gathered about her bedside she gave to each a loving farewell message.

Hers was a glorious and triumphal passing; - A gentle spring rain was falling and the bright warm sun was shining through the clouds.

She was carried on a bed of flowers across the San Fernando Valley, over the road she had so often traveled, and was laid to rest beside her husband in Rosedale Cemetery.

Her son, Norman, dearly beloved by his brothers and sisters, went to join his blessed mother in the beautiful land on May 8, 1931.

After Ann Johnson's death, the sons and daughters - all living in Chatsworth or within two hours drive of it - kept the mountain home until 1929. They sold it, reserving twenty acres as a memorial to their father and mother, naming the place Fern Ann. Here each member of the family has two or more acres for cabins and homes, and here on vacation and holiday gather many of the one hundred and fifty descendants of Ann and Neils Johnson.

They are a united true-hearted family who go to the everlasting hills to rest and to play and to call to loving memory their undaunted and courageous PIONEER ANCESTORS.

ANN WILLDEN JOHNSON and
NEILS CHRISTIAN JOHNSON