Minnie Helena Johnson

Minnie Helena Johnson
Is she showing an engagement ring?

Minnie Helena Johnson
Birth: 8 Sept 1879  Mitchell County, Kansas
Death:  16 Aug 1946  Caldwell, Sumner Co., Kansas
Marriage to Edward Byron German: 14 Feb 1900   Walnut Creek Township, Mitchell Co., Kansas

Minnie Helena Johnson, age 18 years
Hand-Colored photo 12" x 18"
Minnie knew how to tat.  Is her collar tatting?  Did Minnie make it?

Minnie Helena Johnson, age 18 years
Hand-Colored, 12" x 18"
Does anyone know where this photo is now?
This is a copy of a copy of a copy.

I believe Minnie Johnson might be younger in this enhanced photo.
In the original, each image is about 1/2 inch.

Minnie's middle name, Helena or Helene, is from her grandmother, Helene Johnson, who had the courage to voyage with her young family on a small sailing boat from Norway to New York.

Minnie was the only child of Cornelia and John Johnson who lived beyond infancy.
Minnie's five siblings who lived to adulthood were from her parents' previous marriages.

Minnie Johnson with parents John and Cornelia Johnson.
Note the tall feathers of the bird's tail on Minnie's hat.

Minnie grew up on a farm in Hayes Township, Mitchell Co., Kansas.

3 June 1880 Census Hayes Township, Mitchell Co, KS
Minnie is 9 months.  Says she was born in Sept.

Minnie's oldest half-sister, Francis, was much older than Minnie, married two years after Minnie was born, and had daughters near the age of Minnie.  Minnie also had three older half-brothers, all of whom had disabilities, and another older half-sister, Ada.

Minnie Johnson (standing), with her niece Gertie Shaw,
oldest daughter of Frankie & Tom Shaw

Minnie Johnson (seated), with her niece, Edna Shaw(1886-1965), 
3rd child of Frankie & Tom Shaw

About 1899 (date from obituary)
John Johnson moved his family from Hayes Township, Mitchell Co., Kansas to Walnut Creek Township, Mitchell Co., Kansas.  They settled very near the farm of Abel German.

On the 1902 map of Walnut CreeK Township, below, John Johnson is shown in section 8.  Abel German is in section 9.

1902 Map of Walnut Creek Township, Mitchell Co., KS

Abel and Sabina German's family included several sons.

Family of Abel and Sabina German   c.1912
Match the numbers:  1 - Abel     2 - Sabina     3 - Grace     4 - Chet     5 - Ed    
6 - Henry     7 - Otis     8 - Harvey     9 - Vesta     10 - Walter

Ed German
8th Grade Graduation?

Ed German

Minnie Johnson, Ed German, and Minnie's niece Gertie Shaw

14 Feb. 1900 
Minnie Johnson married Edward Byron German in Walnut Creek Township, Mitchell County, KS

Edward Byron German and Minnie Helena Johnson  c.1900
Married on 14 Feb 1900

News of Ed and Minnie's Wedding 14 Feb 1900
It was in many local papers.

Ed German

Minnie German

Ed and Minnie established a farm near their parents.



8 Apr 1904
Minnie's father, John Johnson, died in 1904 and left his farm to his children, including his two sons who had intellectual impairments.  Probate records tell us that Ed purchased the land from Eugene and Isaac, with the money being handled by their court-appointed representative.  The money was used for their care.  A few years later, Minnie's third brother, Clarence, moved away from the area, and Ed most likely purchased his property as well.

Ed German's farm.

1917 Map of Walnut Creek.
By 1917, all or almost all of John Johnson's property had been purchased by Ed German.

1905 Census
For a while after her father's death, Minnie's mother Cornelia Johnson and her half-brother Eugene lived in a house near Ed and Minnie, on what used to be John and Cornelia Johnson's farm, but was now the farm of Ed and Minnie.  The 1905 census shows E. B. German (29 yrs), Minnie (25 yrs), Harold (3 yrs) and Curtis (1 yr) living on a mortgaged farm.  The very next entry shows Cornelia (68 yrs) and Gene (36 yrs) listed as a separate family in a house.

Minnie's half-brother Eugene is not listed.  He had most likely already gone to live at the Kansas State Hospital for Epileptics at Parsons, which opened two years earlier in 1903.  I was unable to find any 1905 census record for the hospital, but he is there on the 1910 census.

1905 Census Walnut Creek Township, Mitchell Co., KS

1910 Census
On the 1910 Census, Cornelia (73 yrs) is living in the same home with Ed (34 yrs), Minnie (33 yrs), and their children ages 9, 7, and 4 years.  We don't know exactly when Cornelia moved in with Minnie and Ed and their family.

In February 1910, not long before the census, Eugene was taken to the Kansas State Hospital for the Feeble-minded at Winfield.

Interestingly, Minnie and Ed were on the farm right next to George Marzolf and his family, including his 10 year old son Earl.  Years later, Earl's daughter married the son of Harold German.  (Harold was Minnie & Ed's oldest son.)

1910 Census Walnut Creek Township, Mitchell Co., KS

Minnie and Ed became the parents of three children, all boys.

Harold Dwight German (1901 - 1984)
Curtis Edward German (1903 - 1947)
Millard Lawrence German (1906 - 1961)

Harold Dwight German (1901-1984), oldest son of Ed & Minnie German

Harold German, oldest son of Ed & Minnie German

Millard Lawrence German (1906-1961), youngest son of Ed & Minnie German

(L to R) Curtis & Harold German, sons of Minnie & Ed German

Harold & Curtis German, sons of Ed & Minnie Johnson German

Minnie and Ed German, and sons

(L ro R) Harold, Millard, Curtis

(L to R) Harold, Millard, & Curtis German, sons of Minnie & Ed German

with dog, Johnny

(L to R) Millard, Curtis, & Harold D. German, sons of Ed & Minnie German,
grandsons of Abel & Sabina German and John & Cornelia Johnson

Ed and Minnie German with sons Curtis, Harold, & Millard

(L to R) Millard, Curtis, & Harold German, sons of Minnie & Ed German

Ed German

19 Oct 1922
Harold German married Cecil Alice Brodie 19 Oct 1922 in Mitchell Co., KS

Harold and Cecil German
Married 19 Oct 1922
Hand-Colored photo.
Does anyone know who has the original of this?  Or an original of the photographed copies?
All I have is this poor copy.   It'd be nice to find an original to scan and share.

21 July 1924
Cornelia Johnson, Minnie's mother, passed away.



11 Feb 1929
The farm house in which Harold and Cecil were living burned to the ground.  This was significant for Minnie and Ed because that day, Harold and Cecil and their two little girls went to live with Ed and Minnie.

Mon., 11 Feb 1929   Harold and Cecil's house burned to the ground.
from Glen Elder Sentinel Wed., 13 Feb 1929

My mother was the oldest child of Harold and Cecil.  She remembered the fire.
From my mother's My Life of the Farm and through High School:

But in February of that year, the house burned down.  I was five years old and Maxine would have been three.  In those days, people had these old trucks and things, and they didn't work too well in cold weather, so you drained the oil out and took it in the house and warmed it up on the stove.  And when it got thin enough, why, you'd take it out and pour it in the trucks and then it would circulate through them and the truck would start.  

            So my Dad had brought the oil in early in the morning and set it on the cookstove.  While it was warming up, he and mother went out to the barn to feed the little calves, and left Maxine and me in the house eating ice cream by the front room stove.  It was a woodburning stove.  Pretty soon Mother came in and as she walked in the door, she saw the flames circling around the kitchen ceiling; the oil had boiled over into the stove and the place was on fire.  She told us to run to the front door and get out, but I was so little that I couldn't tell which the front door was or the back door, so she had to come in the front room and take ahold of Maxine's and my hand, and take us out the back door.  I don't remember seeing the flames, but I'm sure they must have been very close.  

            ...Well, needless to say, the house burned to the ground.  Maxine and I sat on the piano stool and watched most of it burn, and finally one of the neighbors came and got us and took us to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  [the home of Ed and Minnie German.]  They lived down on the creek where I spent the rest of my life until I left home, after I graduated from high school. 

            I'll never forget that after the fire we were sitting around the dining room table eating dinner.  My Grandpa [Ed German] was one not to dwell on trouble too long, and he said, "Well one thing good about this, now your mother can get a Maytag washing machine, and she won't have to use that old machine that she has to push back and forth anymore!" Of course he knew mother was pregnant and the new baby was coming, and he was thinking about how much easier it was going to be for her.  

            And it certainly was, even though until we left the farm, until we moved away from there 20 years later, there was never running water in the house, and when Mother was pregnant, she would carry water from the barn to the house.  I finally got big enough and I could help her do some of that too.  We would heat it in a big old black kettle out doors.  After she got it hot she would carry it into the back kitchen and we would put it in the washing machine and wash all those diapers.  Then we would have to carry the clothes outdoors and hang them on the clothes line and sometimes, well always in the winter, those clothes would just be stiff almost before we could get them on the line.  And sometimes when she'd bring them in, they'd still be stiff and we'd have to hang them behind the stove and wait for them to dry out.  Sometimes we had to melt the ice to get water in the winter to wash with. 

            Mother always washed once a week and made it do that way.  I remember we'd wear our stockings to school...we each had two pair of stockings.  We would wear one pair of stockings and they would have to last the whole week.  Of course, we'd walk across those plowed fields, and you can imagine what the feet of those stockings were like by the time Friday or Saturday rolled around! They were so stiff from dirt, you wouldn't believe, but after we put our shoes on and got them all warmed up, they were just as snug, and nice as they could be, and we didn't think a thing of it.  But they never had holes in the heels.  Mother always kept them mended real nice.  But mercy, they did get dirty. 

                        When the house burned down, my long underwear all burned up and I was tickled to death.  I thought, "Hot dog, I'll never have to wear that long underwear!" And do you know, that very afternoon, Mother went to town and bought us some long underwear. 

            Also that afternoon one of the neighbors came down and said he had gone around the neighborhood and taken up some money to kind of help get us started again.  And there he had a whole sack of silver dollars.  Dad poured them out on the table and counted them, and there were exactly one-hundred silver dollars.  It was more money than anybody had seen at one time for a long, long time, and everybody counted and thought about those silver dollars. 

            Mother went upstairs and brought down a set of little china dishes; they were beautiful.  And I don't know why she did it, but she gave those to Maxine and I to play with, and of course, being three and five years old, it didn't take us long to just break those all to pieces.  But they were beautiful china, and I'd give anything if she'd just taken care of those better, because they were truly beautiful; there was a little teapot, and everything.  But I guess she was trying to take our mind off of the fire. 

            Mother was pregnant when the house burned down.  The baby was born in July, this was Alice.  We didn't know Mother was pregnant and we went to the neighbors' while she was being born on the farm in the farmhouse; we were all born in the front bedroom of this farmhouse.  [Minnie and Ed's home.]  Was I ever surprised when I came home and there Mother was with a brand new baby.   And I remember that I was thrilled.

Moved to Town

A few months later, Ed and Minnie moved to a house in Glen Elder.  Harold and Cecil lived in their farm house for about 15 more years, till they, too, moved to Glen Elder.  The 1930 Census shows Ed and Minnie living in Glen Elder.


I'm guessing Minnie was happy for the opportunity to enjoy the conveniences of town life.  From my mother's My Life of the Farm and through High School:

In the wintertime Mother put papers between the covers so that we wouldn't get too cold upstairs. And of course we didn't have a bathroom; we always just had a pot that we kept upstairs, and in the morning it would be frozen solid. And of course a glass of water would freeze up and it would break the glass. It was nothing to wake up in the mornings after a snow and see little piles of snow on the window sills where it had blown in through the cracks. But we just took this in our stride. We used coal oil lamps, and we carried them upstairs. We didn't set the place on fire like you might think, although we were never allowed to use candles. They were a no-no. 

My Grandmother [Minnie] had an Aladdin Lamp, and it was really wonderful, it really put out some good light. We had gas lamps that we used downstairs to read by and to study by. After the house burned down, when I was five years old, we moved in with Grandma and Grandpa out in the house at Walnut Creek, and that spring they moved to town. Grandma had always wanted to live in town, so she got to go into town and live in a little house. That house is still there. Eventually they moved back to another farm, but she did enjoy herself there in town. I remember every time we went to visit her, we always made sure we got to take a bath in the bathtub, or in the summertime she would give us a shower bath with the hose, and that was really exciting. And she grew petunias...oh how she could grow petunias with that running water and everything. That was a real treat.

Butchering and Lard Soap

From my mother's My Life of the Farm and through High School:

We got to see them render out the lard into the great big ten-gallon crock jars. The lighter the lard, the better it was. If you burned it a little bit it would get kind of a yellow color and this was never so good. But that wouldn't make any difference. You'd have to use it anyway. But ours was always very nice. Grandpa knew just how to do it. 

Then there were cracklin's left and, ohh, those were delicious! They were the skin and what was left of the fat after it was cooked down. My Grandma would put some of those in cornbread and that would really make good cracklin' corn bread. We would eat as many as we wanted until we were sick of them. Then eventually Mother would use what was left and make soap out of them. Mother never bought any soap. It wasn't until probably during the Second World War that Mother decided she should buy soap and quit making her own. 

So you can imagine how much soap Grandma made. We used it to wash dishes and we used it for all the laundry, and she could even make soap so nice it would float. I don't know how she did that, but she learned how to make soap. It was unbelievable. I tried to do it once and that was enough. Never again will I try that.

Ed and Minnie German
Feb 14, 1925
25th Anniversary Photo

13 Aug 1938
Ed German passed away

Edward Byron German Obituary

1940 Census
The 1940 census shows Minnie living in a house in Glen Elder.  She does not have an official occupation.

1940 Census Glen Elder, Mitchell Co., KS

21 Apr 1941
Minnie Married Elmer Hoffhines.  Elmer ran a "suitatorium" in Glen Elder.  A suitatorium was a tailor shop / alterations shop / cleaners / etc. all built into one.  Minnie was a very good seamstress; perhaps she helped Elmer in his store.

My mother lived with Minnie and Elmer
From my mother's My Life of the Farm and through High School:

Finally when I'd graduated from high school, I got a job in the little variety store, Keener's Variety Store, in Glen Elder. I think I made two dollars a week, and I stayed with Grandma and Elmer. She lived in town then. My Grandpa had died when I was 13 years old, and Grandma remarried after a few years and moved to Glen Elder again.

16 Aug 1946
Minnie died while visiting her son in Caldwell, Sumner Co., KS

Minnie Helena Johnson German Obituary

Minnie and Ed German are buried at Glenwood Cemetery near Glen Elder, Mitchell Co., KS.

21 July 1952
Elmer Hoffhines later remarried and then died 21 July 1952.

Elmer Hoffhines death announcement.