Ruth Martha Johnson

Ruth Martha Johnson, first of the three children of John Clarence Diah Johnson and Lillian Elvira Brown, was born 26 April 1907 in Oakland, Alameda County, CA. Her mother had come to Oakland as a small girl, arriving either in the late 1880s or the early 1890s. Her father was a new arrival, having been raised mostly in Merced, Merced County, CA. Oakland was not Ruth’s home for long. When she was less than three years old, the family departed the Bay Area for good. This decision may have come about in the wake of the October, 1909 death of Lillian’s sister Susan Brown Rourke. With Susan’s passing, Lillian had very few close blood relatives left alive. Clarence, on the other hand, possessed kinfolk in abundance, and the couple decided to place themselves in the midst of them, back in the San Joaquin Valley, his familiar venue.

For a short interval in 1910, Ruth and her parents took refuge with her father’s first cousin Josephine Harrington McDonald and her husband Charles Sweden McDonald and their two gradeschool-age sons. Clarence, who had worked as a clerk in Oakland, found a job in Stockton as a clerk at a grocery store. Later in 1910, the Johnson moved farther south in San Joaquin County to the town of Manteca. This may or may not have happened by the month of June, when Ruth’s brother, Lloyd Russell Johnson, was born.

For a few years, Clarence again worked in retail-merchant jobs. He also spent a season or perhaps up to a year in 1917 as part of the construction crew installing the railway line through the Feather River Canyon for Western Pacific Railroad, a job obtained for him by Charles S. McDonald, the head civil engineer of the project. His experience at that job allowed him to obtain a position as engineer and later as an accountant for a Manteca irrigation company. Given the steady pay, there soon was enough money available that the family could obtain a farm. The land, situated just east of Manteca in the area locals called Summer Home district, was acquired at the beginning of the 1920s. Having become so well-settled, the time had finally arrived to expand the family a little, and in late 1922, Ruth’s little sister Lois Annette Johnson was born.

Ruth attended Manteca High School. The farm was her home as she came of age. It was a highly secure set of circumstances. The area was home to a large fragment of the greater Branson clan. Some of the family members living nearby on farms in the Summer Home district (aka Cowell Precinct) were her father’s aunt Nancy Branson Napier, his first cousins Irene Harrington Salmon, Hugh McErlane Branson, and Alice Branson Williams. In the town of Manteca dwelled his aunt and uncle, Theresa Branson Moore and William Osborne Moore -- the couple who had raised him as their ward.

Perhaps what Clarence and Lillian viewed as security struck Ruth as too confining. Ruth seems to have reacted to the shift to the agricultural setting and the appearance of a new baby in the household with restlessness. As she reached her later teens, she went for an extended visit to the home of her aunt Alice Bretelle Johnson Fowle in Berkeley, CA. Bretelle’s daughter Esta Jane Fowle, four years younger than Ruth, mentioned the visit in a 1988 family memoir and recalled that Ruth was “flighty.” Ruth seems to have caused her parents a signficant degree of worry, as in, they needed to get her away from the boy or boys she was associating with.

Possible boy trouble aside, Ruth was actually older than some of her female Manteca cousins before she married. In the 1920s, it was common for local girls to marry at sixteen to eighteen years of age. Ruth appears to have been nineteen -- the precise date of the wedding has yet to surface, but late 1926 or early 1927 would best fit the clues that have been found so far. The object of her affection was Guy Wilbourn Wampler, with whom she must have gone to high school. Guy, born 22 January 1904, was a son of Catherine Lillian “Katie” Lynn of Augusta County, VA. The identity of his biological father is unknown -- and may have been unknown to Guy himself. Katie and her boy had spent the first half-dozen years or so after his birth as part of the household of her father, Ferdinand D. Lynn. Circumstances had changed when Katie had married Charles Franklin Wampler, who adopted Guy and gave him his surname. During the 1910s, Guy and his mother and stepfather had moved from Augusta County, VA to California, ending up in Manteca by no later than 1918, where Charles had become a carpenter for Spreckels Sugar Company. Chances are high that Guy and Ruth had known each other for years before they became involved, but may not have paid attention to each other’s presence until, by the mid-1920s, their three-year age differential was no longer an impediment to being interested in one another.

Ruth and Guy became parents of daughter Phyllis Marie Wampler 11 August 1927. The birth occurred in Sacramento County, which is a strong hint the couple had ceased to reside in Manteca. Guy, who had been briefly employed as a lineman for Pacific Gas & Electric in Manteca (meaning he was a coworker of Theron Hodson, the new husband of Ruth’s second cousin and high school classmate Norma Cowell), probably was following a job prospect in order to become a proper breadwinner for his new family. The unsettled early phase of marriage was apparently too much for the pair. By no later than 1930, they were divorced -- in fact, there are indications they parted ways early in Phyllis’s infancy. Guy resumed living with his mother and stepfather, who were temporarily based in Sutter County. The Wamplers continued to be a part of the story of the greater Branson clan, though, because Katie’s niece Daisy Catherine Lynn married Ruth’s second cousin (and high school classmate) Jack Wesley Salmon in 1929. In the early 1930s Charles and Katie -- who were friends of Jack’s parents Claude and Irene Harrington Salmon -- established themselves on rural acreage in Yolo County, raising not only crops but cattle. This put them near the town of Woodland. Daisy and Jack also settled in the rural fringe of Woodland. Guy was his stepfather’s righthand man and continued to share the home. Guy eventually married again, but may not have done so until as late as the 1960s, his final decade of life. His second wife was Katherine J. Phillips, originally of Roane County, TN. Like Guy’s mother, she was known as Katie. She was past childbearing age by the time she and Guy got together, and the pair had no biological offspring together. Guy lived out the remainder of his days in Yolo County. He died 15 December 1970. His grave is at Woodland Cemetery.

With Guy no longer a part of their daily life, Ruth and Phyllis retreated to her parents’ farm, where they remained through the first half of the 1930s. That meant she was directly affected when three deaths hit the immediate family in quick succession. In July, 1931, her great uncle William O. Moore -- who was also, to all intents and purposes, her grandfather -- passed away. In early October, maternal grandmother Annette Potter Brown, who had recently come to Manteca after many years spent in San Jose, CA, also perished. Then in mid-April, 1932, much to everyone’s shock, Clarence Johnson died at less than fifty years of age. Lillian Johnson no doubt appreciated having her eldest child near at hand. Ruth’s siblings Lloyd and Lois were also there during this time -- Lois because she was still a kid, and Lloyd being a “bachelor stay-at-home son.”

Following in her father’s footsteps, Ruth became a bookkeeper, an occupation she would resort to repeatedly in the years to follow, seldom getting by strictly as a housewife. On 28 June 1934, she married Howard F. Akins of Reno, NV. The ceremony took place in Stockton. Howard, born in 1903, was the eldest of the seven children of Charles Frank Akins and Marie Antoinette Lopez. His parents had started their marriage in rural Merced County just after the turn of the century, and Merced County may well have been Howard’s place of birth. However, by the time he was no older than a toddler, the family had become based in South San Francisco, where his father had obtained a job with a meat packing and shipping company. Eventually Charles had been hired by the W.H. Moffat Cattle Company as a buyer, which by the early 1910s had caused him to spend increasing amounts of time in Reno and other parts of Nevada in order to purchase livestock for slaughter. During these sojourns, Marie and the kids would usually stay back in the Bay Area. By the end of the 1910s, the spouses’ persistent time apart had led to the dissolution of the marriage. The offspring had come of age as part of their mother’s household in San Jose, Santa Clara County, CA. Most had then established their independent lives in California. A few, though, had moved to Nevada. Howard was one of those who had found his way to Reno, and then had gone along when his father and stepmother moved in the 1920s to their long-term home of Fallon, Churchill County, NV. Howard had also become a cattle and beef buyer. He gave up that occupation while married to Ruth, though. The couple settled in 1935 or early 1936 in Ione, Amador County, CA, where Howard was a farm hand.

Unfortunately, the marriage was another brief one. Though the pair would not formally divorce until 1944, they appear to have lived together for no more than three years and produced no children together. After the split, Howard went back to Nevada. Through the mid-1940s he was a cattle buyer based in Austin, Lander County, NV -- far out in the heart of the state. Before 1950, he moved to Los Angeles. His father’s 1962 obituary mentions Howard as a survivor and describes him as still a resident of L.A. Howard’s fate after 1962 is unknown.

Ruth returned home to Manteca and became a bookkeeper again. However, judging by voter registers, she only spent a year or two with her mother and brother, who by then were no longer on the farm but were living with, and helping out, elderly Theresa Branson Moore, whose home was still in the town of Manteca. By 1940, Theresa was in a convalescent situation and Lillian and Lloyd Johnson moved to a new place -- back to in the immediate vicinity of the farm. Ruth also found a living arrangement close by for herself and Phyllis, remaining there until 1944, when she became a wife for the third and final time.

Her third husband was Leon Henry Knowlton, son of George Henry Knowlton and Jennie Lucinda Holcomb, born 20 February 1905. His parents had been born and raised in Wisconsin, and had gone as a young married couple to Lincoln County, SD, arriving in the 1890s. Leon, the second of two sons, had been born there, and had spent his early childhood on the family farm in Lyon Township. By the end of the 1910s, the Knowltons, including Leon’s older brother Roger George Knowlton, had come to Los Angeles County, CA, where Leon had finished coming of age.

By the time Ruth and Leon became acquainted, he was living in Reno, and working there as a mechanic. For the second time in a row, Ruth had chosen a mate associated with Reno; despite her continued residence in Manteca, it would appear she often spent time in Reno. Perhaps it was a favorite recreation spot. Whatever the means of introduction, with Leon, she had finally found someone who would be her spouse for more than a trial period. In late March, 1944, she finally filed for a divorce from Howard Akins. Given how long it had been since they had cohabitated, the petition was granted the same day. Three days later, she and Leon obtained a marriage license.

The couple soon moved to Eureka, Humboldt County, CA. What tugged them in that unprecedented direction is unclear. Eureka was where Ruth’s former sister-in-law Ethel Akins Whelihan had settled in the early 1930s (and where she would finish her life many decades later), but that connection is unlikely to have played a persuasive role, given Ruth’s brief and unsatisfactory history with Howard. Most likely, it was a job opportunity that brought the Knowltons to the Humboldt Bay area. While in Eureka, Leon worked as a mechanic for Callison Trucking Company. Ruth became a bookkeeper for Butler Freight Service. For a few years the household included Leon’s widowed mother Jennie and Ruth’s daughter Phyllis. The comparatively stable circumstances might well have tempted Ruth and Leon to add to the family while she was still short of the upper limit of her potential childbearing years. If so, it was a temptation they ignored. Given the brevity of her first two marriages, it is likely Ruth didn’t want to take the risk she might end up having to raise another child mostly on her own. In addition, she may not have wanted to subject her relationship with Leon to the challenges that would have come with the arrival of a baby. She did get to be a mother again in a sense. Leon had previously been married to Lucille Iva Holt and two children, Lila Marie and Leland Henry, had resulted. After the divorce the youngsters had gone on to live with their mother on her mother’s farm in rural Los Angeles County. Leland was adopted by his uncle Bernard Holt and it is unclear if Leon had much of a relationship with him -- Leon may in fact have not have been the biological father -- but Ruth got to know Lila, who was sixteen when Ruth became her stepmother, and was a grandmother figure in later years to Lila’s son.

At the end of the 1940s Phyllis Wampler returned to San Joaquin County, marrying in 1950 and establishing a life with her husband and kids in Stockton. Eventually Ruth and Leon followed, but not at first, and perhaps not for quite some time. (The 1950 census shows the couple still in Eureka, still employed by the their respective freight companies.) Lillian Johnson’s 1967 obituary places Ruth in Redding, Shasta County, CA. Redding is known to this day as a major hub of the trucking industry, suggesting that Ruth and/or Leon’s employment situation may have drawn them there. Whether they moved there from Eureka is not clear. It seems more likely Redding was a haven they were based in on a temporary basis after having spent a substantial interval in Stockton and/or Manteca. Certainly once their Redding days ended, it was to Stockton and then Manteca they came. Ruth was a social worker in this final stretch of her working life. In approximately 1978, she and Leon retired to Farmington, closer to the Sierra Nevada foothills. Leon died 18 October 1980. Ruth survived him by less than six months. She passed away of a heart attack Sunday, 5 April 1981 at her home in Farmington.

Descendants of Ruth Martha Johnson

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