George Bertrand Johnson, Jr.

George Bertrand Johnson, Jr. (shown left in 1972), son of George Bertrand Johnson and Elizabeth Glenn Bennett, was born 19 May 1920 in Alameda, Alameda County, CA.

George’s mother died when he was five weeks old. He was subsequently adopted by his mother’s sister, Grace Strader Bennett. This was a tough choice for George, Sr., because Grace did not otherwise have offspring and the adoption was meant from the git-go as a permanent arrangement. Furthermore, Grace dealt with the new responsibility by moving in with her widowed mother, Frances Cornelia Strader Bennett, at 2318 West 30th Street in Los Angeles, CA. George, Sr. meanwhile continued to live in Alameda. This separation of hundreds of miles between the homes of father and son is how things stayed for the rest of their lives.

The adoption and relocation meant that young George grew up without the daily presence of his father or any of his father’s siblings or any of his first cousins on his father’s side, inasmuch as the latter all resided in either central or northern California. The only Branson clan relative who lived near George was his grandmother Mary Jane Branson Johnson, who happened to relocate to Los Angeles in the late 1920s. While George Jr. did regularly visit his father and did not entirely disappear from his paternal family’s sphere, enough of a disconnect persisted that relatively little about him was recorded in the within-the-family materials that were so useful in creating some of the other biographies found here on the Branson/Ousley website. Given his extremely common surname, it was a challenge to find out more through public documents. In 2005, when the website was first launched, this biography was quite sparse. It was not until 2010, when George’s surviving daughter made contact, that it became possible to create a sketch of his life as a whole.

George, Grace, and Frances remained based at the 2318 W. 30th residence until 1929. In 1925, the household grew to four members when Grace married Park Brewster Boyce, owner of a garage and of a chauffeur service that had at one point served the movie industry. George therefore grew up with an understanding of automobile maintenance and it was only natural that as a teen he would slip into this sort of work, especially since the influence also came not only via his stepfather but from his biological father as well -- George, Sr. became the owner and operator of a service station in Alameda in the 1920s and continued to operate it for decades.

The 2318 W. 30th home was a rental. With the stock-market crash of 1929, a lot of homes hit the market at cheap prices. This fortuitous set of circumstances led to a house being purchased at 3502 The Strand in Hermosa Beach along the coast of Los Angeles County -- as in right alongside the beach. It is quite likely the down payment was met by pooling the resources of not only Grace and Park, but Frances and George Sr. as well. Hermosa Beach was where George went to high school and he probably came of age thinking of himself as “being from” that place.

Unfortunately for young George, being swept into the Bennett sphere did not provide him with a plentiful and enduring supply of family. George must have felt he was under a curse. First to go was his stepfather, who passed away in the summer of 1933. Grace followed in the summer of 1937, and the next February, Frances Strader Bennett perished. George was not quite eighteen at the time. It is quite possible his father helped him through this transition, but young George did not relocate to Alameda. Having inherited the home at 3502 The Strand, he kept it. Stepping in as a temporary father figure was his maternal uncle Wilson Sumner Bennett. Wilson’s only child Sumner Hartley Bennett was grown and fledged by the late 1930s, so Wilson and his wife Eva left their place in Alhambra, CA and temporarily moved in with George in Hermosa Beach. They stayed at least until George was done with a couple of years of college. Even then the streak of bad luck was not done. Eva Hartley Bennett passed away in early March, 1941.

George married Gladys Ramona Hood 28 June 1941 in Hermosa Beach. Born 23 November 1921 in Alameda County, CA, Ramona was a daughter of Andrew Bell Hood of Scotland and Anne James (aka Annie James) of England. The couple had been spouses barely five months when George enlisted in the military 5 December 1941. This naturally led to some upheaval, but George does not appear to have been required to go overseas. He was a desk sergeant at Ft. Knox, KY in the latter years of the war when Ramona gave birth to a daughter. George is said to have been somewhat disappointed that his child was not a native Californian because it would have made four generations in a row. (The baby is shown at right in the arms of her great-grandmother Mary Jane Branson Johnson in November, 1944 outside Mary Jane’s home at 4206 S. Brighton Avenue in Los Angeles.)

George and Ramona’s little one had a twisted foot and needed corrective surgery and a program of follow-up physical therapy. Ramona felt that this could be better accomplished in southern California. Ramona and the baby returned to Hermosa Beach. However, George’s military obligations kept him in Kentucky. The separation was not good for the marriage, and led to the couple’s divorce in appoximately 1946. Ramona finished raising her daughter as a single mother. She moved in with her own mother and then remained at the same address in Hermosa Beach for decades, in a house originally built by one of her mother’s brothers. She did not marry again. (The daughter’s early medical treatment was successful. She went on to live a physically active life in the military and later as a military wife.)

Though Ramona remained single, George remarried in short order. His second wife was Toni Cline, a woman he had become acquainted with at Fort Knox. Her formal name was Ruth E. Cline. Born 26 October 1921 in Augusta, Bracken County, KY, she was a daughter of Dover Bertram Cline and Chloe Ethel Wood. George and Toni went on to settle in Sunland, Los Angeles County, CA. This was quite a change of venue in L.A. terms. Hermosa Beach is subject to the moderating effect of the ocean on air temperature and humidity level. Sunland is in the San Fernando Valley where the climate is distinctly hotter and drier (mudslide season aside). But moving dealt with the awkwardness of sharing the same neighborhood with his ex-wife. (Ramona and her mother lived only half a mile inland from 3502 The Strand.) George appears to have been content with his choice. And perhaps he had become tired of seeing a parade of beach-goers striding past his home day in and day out. In any event, he chose to remain in Sunland for good. He chose carpentry as his career.

The second marriage was enduring. The couple had only one child, however. She was Dawn Elizabeth Johnson (10 February 1950 - 29 September 2008). Dawn was in high school when her mother died of tuberculosis. George finished raising Dawn on his own. He knew very well what it was like to lose parental figures during one’s teens. Not surprising, the bond between George and Dawn remained close. When Dawn grew up to become a wife and mother, she and her family occupied a house in Sunland next door to George -- a house he had built. He was a regular part of the lives of Dawn’s children. (By contrast, George barely met his other set of grandchildren.) The photograph at the upper left of this biography was cropped from a snapshot of George holding Dawn’s newborn daughter in 1972.

George ended his days as a resident of Sunland, perishing 15 August 1987. His first wife Ramona passed away 17 December 2004 in Torrance, Los Angeles County, CA. His daughter Dawn kept the house next door for the rest of her life and his son-in-law still resides there (current 2010).

Descendants of George Bertrand Johnson, Jr.

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