This is as far as Dad got with his memories but, in an old trunk in the basement, I discovered over fifty love letters they had written to each other before they were married. Dad also wrote over 500 poems to Mom in the 59 years of their marriage.FROM MISSOURI TO MICHIGAN Around June, I received a telegram from Rich Tool Co. in Battle Creek, Michigan to come back to work, so we made preparations to leave. We sent a veal calf to St. Louis and got $6.00 for it, which wasn't enough to get us to Battle Creek. The license on my car had run out so Dad said he would give me enough money for the trip and loan me his plates, which I could mail back when I got to Michigan.
We got up early and left before daylight with $16.00 and a full tank of gas. Mother and Dot had packed a brown bag full of chicken and goodies to eat on the way. We drove on country roads to Rolla, MO where we took old U.S. 66 to St. Louis. It was about noon when we got to St. Louis. The speed, then, was about 45 mph because the two lane highways went through lots of hills and curves. We gassed up in St. Louis and ate our lunch while driving, not wanting to stop and waste time. We didn't have enough money for a cabin (called motels now) and about 2 A.M. the next morning, we ran out of gas. I had to walk about two miles to the next gas station, leaving Dot there all alone in the car. She was a brave little girl and stayed to watch the car and our little bit of goods.
We drove until daylight when the front tire blew out, leaving a big hole in the tube. I was unable to patch the tube so I put on the spare. We had only gone a few miles when the spare blew out too and I had to drive on the rim until we reached a small town gas station. The owner felt sorry for us and sold us two used tires and tubes for $2.00, which was a windfall for us, for we only had enough money to get to Battle Creek.
By the time we reached New Boston, Michigan, we filled the tank with enough gas to finish our journey and, with twenty cents left, we bought two ten cent hamburgers. We both thought they were the best hamburgers we had ever eaten. We arrived in Battle Creek about 9:00 A.M. and drove to 524 W. Michigan Ave. where my brother and sister-in-law, Jack and Marie lived. All we had when we arrived was us. We had no money and no home, but in the morning, I would have a job and a pay-day again. My brother's two girls [Wynne and Adelaid] were spending the summer at their grandmother's in Missouri and they had a day-bed (about the size of an army cot) that we used as our bed. We didn't mind the size because we never used more than half of a big bed anyway. Jack's house had a living room, one bedroom, a kitchen, and one bathroom. It wasn't a lot of room for two families but we pitched in and made it do. Marie and Jack eventually moved into a full house on South Capital and we kept the apartment on W. Michigan. We loved that little place; our first home. We could look out the front window and see the Kalamazoo River and next to us the Battle Creek Arboretum, where we used to walk, hand in hand, through the beautiful trees.
OUR LIFE IN BATTLE CREEK
Aerial view of Battle Creek, MIMy work was about a mile from home so I could come home for lunch most of the time. After about a week, I was put on the afternoon shift from 5:00 P.M. to 4:00 A.M., working ten hours per day, seven days a week. I made 99 cents per hour piece work welding stillite seats on Pratt Whitney sodium cooled valves. It was a very tedious and back breaking job. Those valves were for the Russian government and had to be perfect. I had made a lot of friends while working at Rich Tool, on and off for six years, and we spent a lot of nights together, playing cards or dancing and drinking at parties or road houses.
The people we rented from wanted to raise our rent so, because Dot was pregnant with our first child, we moved closer to town into a three room apartment with a bath and a glassed in front porch. It was heated with coal and also had a garage. Mr. Columbus, our landlord, was a bachelor and a concert pianist. We loved to visit him and hear him play. Percy Clements, a friend, came to room and board with us and he was very good company.
She was put into a private room and a nurse was with her most of the time. Later we found out the doctor was a drunk and they thought it could have been a twin. We never did pay the doctor and the hospital only charged us for the regular ten days even though Dot had been there for twelve days. We had quite a week after they got home. All of our friends and relatives came to see our beautiful girl, Joyce. She was a doll!
We decided we wanted to find a bigger place before the baby came, so we found a big , four bedroom, furnished house on Post Ave. on the West side of town. The house was up on a hill above the Postum and Kellog plants and we could smell Postum and corn flakes early in the morning. As the time grew near for the baby to come, we saved up and bought a layette, a crib, and a bath table. One night as we were having dinner with our friends , the Lamperts, Dot began having pains. Mother had told her not to rush to the hospital and sit there for hours; so we waited and I sweated. We notified the doctor and about 11:00 P.M. we went to the Catholic Hospital where I was allowed to stay in the room with Dot until they were ready to prepare her for delivery. I went to sit in the waiting room where they often came with orange juice and ades to drink. Finally, a nurse came in and told me," Mr. Johns, you are the father of a baby girl and mother and daughter are doing fine". Dot was supposed to be there for ten days in a double room @$4.50 a day but complications set in about the forth day and she was rushed into the operating room. They told me later that they had found a piece of after-birth that had not come out at the time of birth.
Joyce Elaine Johns - 1936
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
Work was getting slow and I wasn't able to get piece work so, I started to work day rate at 45 cents per hour and not very many hours per day. Finally, the day came when I was laid off. We loaded all of our belongings into our 1932 Coupe with a rumble seat and went to Detroit. We stayed a week with Hazel and Elliott and, when I still couldn't find work, we decided to go back down on Dad's farm. After about a week, we went to Dot's home and stayed for a week. There were no jobs there either so we went back to Missouri. Joyce was about six months old and Dad and Mother really loved that child. Dad never was much for kids, especially babies, but he really fell for her. He would carry her around in the field, talking to her, and showing her the cattle, pigs, chickens, and mules. He called her his "little Joyce".
When winter came, we didn't have much to do except fix fences, husk corn for feed, and take care of the stock. Mother and Dot worked on a homemade quilt and quilted a Friendship Quilt for Dot. A Friendship Quilt is made from blocks pieced together and signed by all of your friends. Then the blocks are sewn together to make the quilt. In March, I got a letter from my brother, Harold, saying he had a job for me at the Lincoln Plant and to get up to Detroit where I could start work right away. I left Dot and Joyce on the farm and went to Detroit where I stayed with Hazel and Elliott for two weeks. Meanwhile, Dot was having eye trouble and Joyce was very sick. When they got better they came to Detroit on a bus. She was really beat when she got here after 18 hours on a bus with a baby but she said everyone was really nice to her. Gee but it was heaven to see my two babies again. We stayed with Hazel and Elliott for about a week until we found an apartment on Seward and Twelfth. It was a two-story brick building and the apartment, for $25.00 a month, was over a C. F. Smith grocery store.
Work was coming along pretty good by this time and I guess I suited the boss because he gave me so much work that I didn't even have time to go to the john. We could not smoke in the building or on the grounds and there wasn't even a lunchroom. The caterer came in with sandwiches, soup, and cold drinks and we would sit on a box, if you could find one, or on the floor to eat. We had 15 minutes for lunch and no wash-up time. I was getting 62 1/2 cents per hour or $5.00 per day. Luckily, cost of living was equal to the pay.
Mother came to Detroit and rented a big house on Woodward and Blaine which she furnished for light housekeeping. She had four rooms on the first floor (living room, two bedrooms, and a huge kitchen) and there was parking in the back yard. Mother and Dot went to an auction sale, shortly after she arrived, and they bought Joyce an old fashioned brass crib with a new mattress and Joyce finally got out of the bassinet. One day, Dot noticed Joyce was broken out with red bumps and when Mother came over she said they looked like bedbug bites. Upon examining the crib, I found the tubing on her new crib was full of bedbugs. I poured boiling water over it, held it over the gas burner, and scoured it in the bathtub 'til I got them out. We had to throw out the new mattress. Not too long afterwards we were swarmed with cockroaches from the store below so I started to look for a new place to live. I guess I answered every ad but no one would rent to you if you had children. We finally rented the back apartment from Hazel and Elliott on Kirby Street.
In the meantime, Mother had rented a light housekeeping house on Fourth Street. We needed more room because Dot was pregnant with Tom and we couldn't find anything. Finally, Mother, Dot, and Hazel came up with a plan. Mom would sell her place to Hazel and Elliott and, they in turn, would sell their place on Kirby to us. We paid $750 for it at $25 a month with no money down. We moved from the two room back apartment into the three room kitchen, bedroom, living room) apartment in front. There was only one bathroom for the entire five apartments, which was upstairs. We had a coal furnace and a gas hot water heater. We furnished the washer in the laundry room. It was a three cup plunger 'Easy' with a spin dryer that danced all over the floor when the spin dryer was on. We had a small back porch, large enough for clothes lines and the playpen. This place gave us a home and a small income. Dorothy was about twenty and looked about fourteen at the time and she was the landlady of our business. She fired the furnace during the day and made sure the halls and bathroom were kept clean. We had very nice renters and everyone got along very well.
everything white and brightened everything up. It was harder to keep clean, but a lot better to live in. Mr. and Mrs. Dody, an older couple who lived in the back upstairs unit, did their own decorating because he was a painter. He was quite a kidder and Irish from the word go.
We were there about six months when we got a in, everything was painted green so I repaintednotice that the building had been sold and we would have to find a new place to live. We wanted to take our renters with us, so we found another house at 1626 Merrick and, after work each night, I loaded up one apartment at a time on a borrowed trailer and moved everyone to the new location. It took me about a week to move them all and get them settled in our new place. We were the last to move and I had to move our large piano all by myself. I don't know how I did it. There were five units which rented for $5 a week, including heat, electricity, and gas, and we got our apartment for free. We paid $35 a month for the building. There were three units on the second floor, two units on the first floor, and one in the basement. People were not fussy in those days because it was still the Depression and some were on welfare.Dot was pregnant with Tom, but she never missed a day doing her duties and being a good wife, mother, and landlady. When we moved
House on Merrick in Detroit
however, did get a restraining order against him so he couldn't come home. She couldn't pay her rent so we carried her for six weeks. One night she moved out and went back to him, still owing us the $30 rent.
Tom was born August 1935 at Florence Crittenton Hospital and Virginia Johns, Harold's wife, went with us. Dr. Arch Wall, our doctor, almost got there too late but everything worked out fine. Now Dorothy had two babies and did we have 'didies' and baby clothes. They were all washed in the basement and hung up to dry in the basement and the yard. We had people moving in and out of apartments all the time. The basement apartment was rented to Mr. Barnes. When he got out of work, he would start drinking and beating up his wife. Ray, Dot's brother, was living with us now and one night we heard screams. Ray and I rushed down to the furnace room and heard Barnes beating his wife again. I knocked on the door and when it opened and I was about to go in, Barnes threw a right and caught me full in the nose. I got my arm around his neck and finally got him down on the floor. He was about six foot two and 200 pounds and I was only five foot seven and 150 pounds, but I held him down until the police came. The police took him away and I was supposed to file charges the next day but, because they had two little boys and would loose their welfare if I filed, I didn't do it. His wife,
Thomas Gene Johns - 1935
Mom and Dad lived in an apartment on Pallister from 1937 to 1939 where Harold and Sue were born. In 1939, they moved to their first house on Stout near Finkle and in 1941 moved to 16565 Trinity where they raised their family. They lived there for over thirty years and finally, due to their poor health, moved to Marine City, Michigan to be near Sue and her family.
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