What Daddy and Mother did in the War (Part 6)

This is Part 6 of “What Daddy and Mother Did in the War,” by their daughter, Stephanie Johnson Dixon. Read Part 5 first.

Boomer Sooner: College Life

After working at the Army Depot for nearly a year, she moved back home for a short time and finished planning to attend the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Shirley had some friends, Ollie Mae Kilpatrick and Ruth Marie Snider, who already attended there and they were probably the key in her decision to go there. Bill and George tried to convince her to go closer, to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, but she told them, “That’s just a social school.” Years later she laughed when saying, “So instead I went to the biggest social school in the country.”

She packed her trunk and rode the train out west to Oklahoma. She remembered it as being a long way and the farthest she’d ever been away from home.

OU was noted for its football team and its rich social life. Shirley moved into one of the girl’s dorms at first, but by second semester had pledged Alpha Xi Delta. Oklahoma campuses had been raided of its college men, just like every other campus in the nation, but the girls still managed to find occasional dates. They kept up their sorority social calendar in spite of the dearth of eligible men. There were teas, special dinners, and other activities to keep the young women busy when they weren’t in class.

Shirley declared Physical Education as her major, but claimed later that the heavy emphasis on science courses made her fret that she might not be able to finish with that major. She did well in English courses and enjoyed writing and might have changed her major to English. (as one of her daughters did) if she had completed her degree.

When she returned home after that one year of college, she found that family fortunes were not great. George, who could nearly always make a crop, had a crop failure. He tried to reassure Shirley that she would be able to return to school in the fall, that he would borrow money for that purpose. Shirley refused. She told him that she had worked to save for college before and that she’d do it again.

I'll be with You in Apple Blossom Time: The Waiting Game

Shirley got a job working at Turner Drug Store at the corner of Main and Poplar in downtown Marianna and was working there as a clerk. Cliff and Annie Williams were either dating seriously or had recently married. Cliff was an old school friend of Bob’s and a recently returned vet from both the Aleutian and European Theaters. Annie was a friend of Shirley’s.

One evening in October Cliff and Annie Louise decided they wanted to go to a night club in Forrest City. They invited Bob. He was tired after a busy work day and begged off, saying that he was too fatigued and besides, he didn’t want to go without a date. Annie insisted that it was not a problem (sounds like a set-up to me). He should ask Shirley Allen, they said. Annie thought she’d go.

It evidently was not a hard sell. Bob Johnson was well-known around town, a handsome, slightly older (by seven years) Army veteran. Bob remembered Shirley as a girl around his youngest sister Floyd’s age. She was a cute basketball player at the time, before he left for his military service. When asked about their “blind date” years later, Dad would smile and say, “I didn’t know her, but I knew who she was.” And then he’d raise and lower his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.

Bob asked Shirley to double-date with him, Cliff and Annie. She accepted and that was the end of that. They hit it off. Mother talked years later of “how handsome your Daddy was.” Daddy said about Mother, “I couldn’t hardly think of anything else.” Halfway through November they were engaged. By December 30 they were married. Their marriage lasted until his death November 18, l998, just six weeks shy of 53 years.

There were four children and nine grand-children that they nurtured and loved in between those years. They traveled to every continent except Antarctica. Mother lived for it. Dad endured it. But even though Shirley had a sister and nieces living in Alaska for many years, neither of them ever vacationed in Alaska. Bob had gotten a good look at Alaska. And he knew that sometimes you go somewhere for a lark and wind up having to stay. He had no intention of taking that chance again.

Both of our parents were pillars of the community. There was a business to run. There was work to be done for the PTA, the Lion’s Club, and the Wesleyan Guild. There was Little League to coach, Brownies and Cub Scouts to lead, a community swimming pool to build, kids to raise. Eventually there were grandchildren to watch dance and play ball.

Neither of our parents ever quite got the hang of never volunteering for anything, though I’m sure there were times when that might have sounded good to them. Neither Bob nor Shirley Johnson would say that they had done anything extraordinary in their lives. That would be one of their rare mistakes. Our family, community, and nation would be poorer without their determination to help the country through those war years. Their sure guidance proved necessary for the years afterward. They were just two of the people who made up a truly committed generation. We were lucky to have them.

“Little Bunny’s Birthday”: Bob Johnson celebrates a birthday in Dutch Harbor with the help of friends Brainerd, Glenn, Stewart Rogers, McGee, Baugh, Bowles, and Bobby Boon.

Bob Johnson, courtesy of Stephanie Dixon

Works Cited

• Arkansas National Guard Yearbook. 1938.
• Beauchamp, Sandy. Interview. November 2007
• Boon, Dr. Robert Horace. Interviews. 4 December 2007 and 7 December 2007.
• Boon, Dr. Robert H. Letter. December 2007
• Department of Navy. USS Grant. Naval Historical Center.
• Duke, Lois Barnett. Telephone Interview. 2 December 2007
• Finger, Michael. Big Empties. Internet article.
• Hartwell, Joe. USS Madawaska/USS Grant. Internet article. 2003
• Holman, Sue Allen. Telephone Interview. 28 November 2007
• Garfield, Brian. The Thousand Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians. New York: Doubleday, l969
• Goldstein, Donald M., and Dillon, Katherine V.. The Williwaw War: The Arkansas National Guard in the Aleutians in World War II. Fayetteville: The University Of Arkansas Press, l992.
• Johnson, Robert Truman. Conversations. Throughout his life.
• Johnson, Robert T. Letter. 5 July, l944.
• Johnson, Shirley Allen. Conversations. Throughout her life.
• Maxwell, William. Beans, Biscuits, and Barbed Wire. West Tennessee Historical Society Papers, 49 (1995), pp 165-178.
• Memphis Depot Business Park. The History of the Depot. Internet article.
• US NAVY Combat Narratives. The Aleutians Campaign. Internet Files.
• Williams, Roy V. Personal Interview. 7 December, 2007.