Lloyd Russell Johnson

Lloyd Russell Johnson, second of the three children of John Clarence Diah Johnson and Lillian Elvira Brown, was born 26 June 1910 in Stockton, San Joaquin County, CA. Just after his birth the family, which included his older sister Ruth, moved to the southern edge of the county to the much smaller town of Manteca.

Manteca and its immediate vicinity would continue to be Lloyd’s home thoughout his childhood. At first the family home was within the town itself. His father worked at a variety of retail-merchant jobs, spent a season or so on the Western Pacific construction crew as track was laid through the Feather River Canyon, and then, toward the end of the 1910s, obtained a more financially rewarding position as a civil engineer and then as an accountant for a Manteca-based irrigation company. The steady pay from that company allowed the family to acquire a farm, a long-sought ambition that would, so it was hoped, mean that there would always be a family estate for Lloyd and Ruth to come home to. In fact, things were looking so secure that Clarence and Lillian had one more child, Lois, in 1922.

The farm was in an area just east of Manteca known as Summer Home, in Cowell election precinct. Other members of the Branson clan had properties there, including Lloyd’s great aunt Nancy Anna Branson Harrington Napier, as well as his father’s first cousins Irene Harrington Salmon, Hugh McErlane Branson, and Alice Branson Williams. Meanwhile back in town lived grandmother (actually great aunt) Theresa Branson Moore and her husband, William O. Moore. His father’s first cousins Eunice Harrington Converse and Elsie Harrington Cowell and their families were also based in Manteca’s rural fringe. The milieu was familiar and the family now well-rooted. When Lloyd attended Manteca High School, he had many relatives as classmates. He was part the Class of 1928. (The photo at the upper left of this biography was derived from the 1928 yearbook, The Tower). He was a pitcher for the school’s baseball team.

As he came of age, Lloyd lingered on the farm, working there or nearby as a poultryman. In his early twenties, he may have briefly lived and worked elsewhere, as implied by a March, 1932 reference in the Modesto Bee that says he was back in Manteca for a visit to see his parents. Assuming he was in fact gone from home, it is unclear where he went or how far away it was. In the long run, his sojourn didn’t have much effect on his life story, as he came back upon the death of his father in April, 1932. Lloyd became the man of the larger Johnson household and would fulfill that role for some time to come. He appears to have been his mother’s anchor. The loss of Clarence was surely a body blow to the immediate family in terms of emotional shock. Clarence had passed away shy of his forty-ninth birthday. No one had anticipated or planned for the breadwinner of the family to be gone so soon or so suddenly, especially not when the Great Depression was reaching its deepest trough. Moreover, the demise came eight months after the passing of Will Moore, and five months after the death of Lloyd’s maternal grandmother Annette Potter Brown. It is small wonder Lillian depended upon Lloyd.

Unfortunately, the farm was probably in debt, and was not large enough to begin with to support the family, even with Lloyd there. Nevertheless the family stayed for an interval, perhaps in the hope of making a go of it, but on the other hand, maybe for no other reason than that they could not find a buyer in such a blighted economy. After a few years, though, Lloyd, Lillian, and Lois moved in with Theresa Branson Moore in the town of Manteca. By that time, Theresa was an elderly widow who benefitted as much from having the younger folk there as they did by having a roof over their heads. Soon the household expanded even further, as Ruth returned after the failure of her second marriage. With Ruth was her daughter, Phyllis Wampler, meaning there were two more mouths to feed, but fortunately Ruth was able to contribute funds by working as a bookkeeper, as she had done between her first marriage and her second.

In about 1938, Theresa moved into an end-of-life situation in the nearby town of Lathrop. Lloyd, Lillian, and Lois found a rental dwelling back in Summer Home district, not far from where the farm had been. Ruth chose this point to get established in her own place again with Phyllis. She was nearby, though, having also found a place in Summer Home district.

As the 1930s wound down and the 1940s began, Lloyd shifted jobs several times. For a while he was again a poultryman, then a sugar-maker, then a welder. As World War II went on, he moved to Stockton, a change that coincided with Lois heading out to begin her life with husband Charles Whelan. The 1944 voter register shows Lloyd in Stockton, employed as a boilermaker, meaning he may have accepted foundry work -- this may have had him working beside his second cousin, Daniel Corkins.

The mid-1940s was also the one time in Lloyd’s life when he had a wife. She did not leave much of an imprint -- so little in fact that it was not until early 2021, more than fifteen years after the initial version of this biography was uploaded, that it became possible to be sure she actually existed. She was Ebie Keesee, born 6 June 1917 in south-central Arkansas to Edward Keesee and his wife Eva Lou Sterrett. She was the sort of woman who was quick to move from one marriage to another and does not appear to have settled down until her mid-forties back in Arkansas and Louisiana with her fifth husband, helping to raise his three kids from his prior marriage, and continuing to be his wife until her death 1 February 1988. She and Lloyd did not have offspring. Indeed, they may not have gone through an actual wedding. They are shown together in the 1944 Stockton city directory as if they were already husband and wife, but newspaper divorce-court articles make it clear Ebie did not finish obtaining a divorce from her prior husband Charles Boyd Gaylark until February of 1945 at the earliest. What Lloyd’s mother thought of the cohabitation is an open question. (Lillian shared the home during that period just as she had been doing in prior years.) Maybe the couple told everyone including Lillian that they had eloped to Reno, without having ever done so. If they did formalize their status, the gesture did not succeed in binding them together for long. The 1945 and 1946 Stockton directories still show Ebie as Lloyd’s wife, but the 1949 directory shows her as Ebie Kelley, wife of Leonard Paul Kelley. That was another instance of cohabitation; she did not legally wed Leonard until 18 Nov 1950 in Bremerton, WA. Lloyd may well have been relieved to see Ebie vacate the premises. If his inclinations had truly been to be a family man, he would have made more than a fraction-of-a-decade attempt. For that matter, he would have chosen a better prospect, not someone who showed all the obvious signs she was the female equivalent of a sower of wild oats.

Lloyd came back to Manteca early in the post-war period, i.e. as soon as he and Ebie were quits. The timing coincides with the return of his sister Lois and brother-in-law Charles Whelan, and indeed, the 1950 census shows Lloyd with them. He may or may not have later resumed living with his mother -- in said 1950 census, she is not a member of the household. In any case, Lloyd’s retreat back to Manteca amounted to an “I’m staying for good” sort of step. Or that is, it certainly looks that way, as there are no sources found so far that place him elsewhere in the decades to come, whereas there are an ample number that do place him there. For example, a 7 May 1958 article in the Modesto Bee singles out Lloyd as the chairman of the 25th anniversary party of Manteca’s White Hall lodge of the Fraternal Order of the Eagles.

Lloyd died Wednesday, 22 November 1978, eleven years after his mother. His sisters survived him. The final residence given on his Social Security Death Index entry is Manteca. The death was recorded in Stanislaus County, however. This undoubtedly means that his final moments were spent at a hospital in Modesto. His remains were interred Friday, 24 November 1978 at Park View Cemetery of Manteca.

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