from "​Double Cousins" by Ralph Hammersborg,  A Norwegian Family Chronicle, produced in 1996

Ralph Hammersborg had asked his Mother’s cousins to write about their lives.  The cousin's stories are taken from "Double Cousins by Ralph Hammersborg, A Norwegian Family Chronicle, produced in 1996.”   Birth dates of living relatives have been removed from the original text.

1923 - Norman Victor Johnson
born November 22, 1923, died at age 92 on March 4, 2016
Son of Johnie & Marie Johnson

 (This story is taken from a recorded interview by the editor (Ralph Hammersborg) with Norman.  This conversation was done the week of Christmas, 1995, in his home).

I was born in Blaine, Washington.  I could have been named for Victor Borge but I think I was named for the orator/preacher Norman Victor Pierce.   My first memories are of the neighborhood there on “C” or “D” Street, off the main drag, near the border crossing for trucks.   I remember there were woods there then.  I went to the first grade at Blaine Grade School.  We attended the Blaine Methodist Church and Sunday School. The “Depression” hit in 1929.  The lumber mill, where Dad worked, closed down and in the summer of ‘31 we moved to what was known as the “Klander” place near Ferndale.  The spuds were already planted for us.  Gunder Rust gave me a hoe and I remember hoeing potatoes in bare feet and how hot the sand was that summer.   Grandpa and Grandma Susag visited us there.   I remember what they look like, Grandpa's white beard and round glasses.  He didn't like to go out into the sunlight, it hurt his eyes.  Johnnie D and Lester visited us there.  I remember the woodshed and the guidance I got there.  One evening Dad took me out there and I thought I was going to get it but I didn't know what for.   He surprised me and gave me a new sailor’s suit.

I wasn't even sixteen when we moved to the “Brown Road” place but I drove the model T to pick up kids to pick beans.  It was only a quarter-mile but some of the kids lived further away.  This place was on the railroad track frontage. There was a station near there called “Enterprise”.  There was a pond on the place that we swam in and I fished for catfish.  I would use a bent pin on a string and a stick and leave it while I did the chores.  Sometimes there would be a fish on it when I came back to check.  I think I bought a model T pick-up for $5 and there might have been $6 or $8 in change (coins) in the cracks of the seats (a few silver dollars).  There was a box on the back that I hauled kids in.  I was going to make a “speeder” out of it but the only tool I had was an axe.   I sure remember the workload of chores I had to do.   After high school I worked as an electrician in Bellingham, then I got a job in the shipyard in Seattle.

I believe the guys like my dad and Helmer that came from the old country had a whole different outlook about families.  They married and had kids to help them on the farm.  They didn't have kids to play with and have fun with but they fed them to keep them healthy so they could get out in the barn and work.  The girls were supposed to help Mom in the house and the boys were to help Dad out on the farm.

I was drafted into the army in February 1943.  My boot camp training was at Camp Rucker, Alabama, Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, and Camp Gordon, Georgia. “I spent three years fighting Germans and sergeants”.   Actually, Norman had an interesting tour of duty that we can look back on more than 50 years ago and recognize that the Lord had his hand on Norman.   As a member of the 242nd Anti-Aircraft Battalion, we were stationed near Algiers.  As it turned out, I was just five miles from my cousins, Lester and Arnold.  Lester had malaria, but I was able to visit with them.  I was chosen to guard some prisoners in transit from North Africa to England.  Then to get back to North Africa, I “had” to return to the USA.  There was time to return home, to the Klander place, for a few days.  That turned out to be a double blessing because during this time most of the men in North Africa were moved to the “D-Day” Normandy Invasion.  As we all know now, fifty plus years later, there was a very high casualty rate.   Norman left Newport News, Virginia May 9th, 1944 with a 14-day crossing to Oron, Africa.   There I joined up with the 99th Chemical Mortar Battalion.  I landed in Italy and saw Pompeii and the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” among many other sites.  During the fall of 1944, our unit moved through Italy, France, and Germany. I had many encounters with the enemy, a few which were too close.  I remember carrying the radio for the lieutenant and diving into a mortar crater and listening to bullets whizzing overhead.  Then near Christmas, our unit was occupying a farm just inside Germany.  I was on guard duty but it was time to change the watch.  I went into a chicken coop to wake those coming on duty.  A mortar hit in the courtyard, destroying a Jeep.  There were other casualties but I was hit in the neck with shrapnel.  It was several months before I caught up with my unit again, after recovering from that wound.

During the summer of 1945, I was home on a two-week leave.  The war in Europe was over and it sounded like I would be headed to the Pacific theater.  Marian and Vic were driving me back to Fort Lewis when we heard the news that the war was over!  I had to travel to Fort Bliss, Texas (of all places) to be processed out of the army.

I married Helen Einerwold on September 21, 1946.  We had Doreen LaVon and Marvel Kay.  I worked at Mills Electric in Bellingham for 16 years.  We lived in Bellingham from ‘46 to 1958 and then on the Y Road from ‘58 to ‘68.   After a divorce in 1970, I married Marian Ruth Beach Olsen on June 21, 1975.  Marian has four children Kim, Kyle, Kent, and Kay.

Norman has always been an avid hunter and fisherman.  He and Marian still hunt elk with friends near the Bumping River on the eastern slopes of Mount Rainier.  They have a boat and when they are not in it, in the San Juan Islands, their home in Anacortes looks out over the ferry and other shipping traffic on the Guemes Channel.  It is a beautiful northwestern view of the water and San Juan Islands.

Obituary from the Bellingham Herald

Norman Victor Johnson died in his Anacortes home on Friday, March 4, 2016.  Born in Ferndale, Washington on November 22, 1923 to Johnnie and Marie Johnson, he was the third of nine children.  He is now reunited with three of his sisters and his parents in their heavenly home.  In 1943, Norman joined the United States Army engaging in combat duty in France, Germany and North Africa during World War II and was awarded a Purple Heart.  He also served in the Washington Air National Guard.  He was married in 1946 to Helen Einerwold (Trott) and they had two children, Doreen (Mark) Olson and Marvel (Gregg) Collings.  In 1975 he married Marian Olson and together they raised four children, Kim (Brad) Severns, Kyle Olson, Kay (Mel) Oltman and Kent Olson.  He has seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.  He will be missed by all.  Norm worked for Mills Electric in Bellingham and was also a civilian worker in the National Guard, but his first loves were fishing, hunting, cars and music.  Having played the saxophone, clarinet and guitar, he loved country-western, jazz and gospel music.  A memorial service will be held at 11:00 am on Saturday, March 19, at Bellingham Covenant Church (1530 E Bakerview Rd) where Norm was a member for many years.   A military service and interment will take place sometime later at Tahoma National Cemetery.  In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Wounded Warrior Project or to Hospice of the Northwest.  Peace to his memory.

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Johnson Family (home)  - Kinstories (home)  -  Susag Family  -  Flatau Family  -  Beckman Family
Granquist Family  -  Anderson Family  -  Stout Family  -  Walker Family  -  Peterson Family  -  Morris Family  - Cauble Family