George Johnson Interview Links. [Work in Progress].
Keven Shipman: Okay. So, yeah. She’ll write up the stories and we’ll record for her and take some pictures. And then we’ve talked to a few elders so far, and then we put it on our Shoalwater Bay website, and then all your kids and grandkids, they get it. That’s how we got in contact. That’s we were contacted. Your daughter thought you’d be great, and I said, heck yeah. We would love to come down and talk to you.
George Johnson: Oh, you talked to my daughter? Yeah. Georgia?
Keven Shipman: Yep. Uh-huh. Yeah. And also Chad.
George Johnson: Chad, yeah.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. So we talked to him a bit we got they thought it’d be great because they saw we were talking to elders.
George Johnson: Okay.
Keven Shipman: And so I was, like, happy when I heard about you. And so we thought, let’s come down and talk to you. Now what is your age?
George Johnson: I’m 93.
Keven Shipman: So oh, let me get my pen here if I can find it.
George Johnson: Now what family are you from?
Keven Shipman: The Shipmans.
George Johnson: Shipman.
Keven Shipman: Yeah.
World War Two Era.
George Johnson: The the last time I was with a Shipman was when I went to Seattle to have an examination to go into the service at World War Two. Forgot his name now. About my age.
Keven Shipman: Okay. There’s a Vernon Shipman would have been around your age.
George Johnson: Probably Vernon. Yeah.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. That’s my grandfather.
George Johnson: Oh, is it?
Keven Shipman: He was also in World War Two. He was a Navy man.
George Johnson: Yeah. Well he got called in then.
Keven Shipman: Yeah.
George Johnson: I got called, but it got deferred.
Keven Shipman: Okay.
George Johnson: Because I was climbing in a logging camp. And they deferred that some of the loggers like the climbers because they were hard to get men, you know.
Keven Shipman: Oh, yeah. And they’re important to for the primary. So yeah. Must have been Vernon. He would have been about yeah. He would have been about that age. And I’m actually named after him. My name is Vernon Keven Shipman.
Chokeberries on the Reservation as kids.
And when I wrote to your daughter, I said, what would be some good questions to ask you, because I didn’t know for sure some good questions. One of the questions she thought would be good was to ask you about the chokeberries in the cemetery at Shoalwater Bay.
George Johnson: Oh, you mean the chokeberries? We call them chalk berries.
Keven Shipman: Chalk berries?
George Johnson: Choke those. I guess the real name is Choke.
Keven Shipman: Okay.
George Johnson: Whatever we call them chalk. Or chalk chalk berries when we were young. They accused us of getting them best best ones on the cemetery.
Keven Shipman: And how old were you then?
George Johnson: Oh, we were about that was in there in late twenties that was I was about 8, 8, 9 years old.
George Johnson’s Grandfather, Ben Armstrong.
Keven Shipman: And you hung out at the Shoalwater Bay quite a bit?
George Johnson: Oh, we lived down there in the summertime. See, we lived in South Bend. We’d go down there when. My brother and I would go down there and stay with my uncle. George Rogers and Lovey, his wife lived on the reservation. Ivan Bishop and Nida Anita Armstrong. He lived on the reservation. My grandfather, Ben Armstrong.
Keven Shipman: Oh, your grandfather’s Ben Armstrong?
George Johnson: Yeah. And he had a logging camp there on the reservation. He had the cook house and the bunk house and everything for the loggers there.
-The Charley Family.
Yeah. Roland Charley and Mitchell And Stanley, Charley, I can remember them.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. They were part of my, they were part of like, my great great great grandfather is Chief Charley. And did you ever have a chance to meet the old chief?
George Johnson: Yeah. The old chief well, when did he die?
Keven Shipman: He died, it seemed like, in the . . .
George Johnson: In the early thirties, what do you think?
Keven Shipman: Yeah, I would say. Yeah. I would I think you’re right on that.
George Johnson: Because I remember going to see him, and he was on his deathbed. And he would had a, a bunk built on a wall. He was laying in the bunk bed. I can remember it. And they had a fish stew cooking on the stove and a big kettle like that. I can remember that. And the old fella was just laying in bed. Yeah.
Keven Shipman: And was that on the Shoalwater Bay?
-George Rogers
George Johnson: Yeah. That was in Shoalwater Bay. I was right close to where George, George Rogers lived.
Keven Shipman: So he lived close by there?
George Johnson: Pardon?
Grandma Rachel.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. He lived close by there and then maybe it was close to also where my grandma lived. Rachel Whitish?
George Johnson: Rachel and I probably played with her when I was a little kid.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure you did. She was hanging out there on the.
George Johnson: She’s old now. About my age isn’t she?
Keven Shipman: She would be.
George Johnson: She passed on.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. She passed on a while ago. But she would have been a contemporary.
Roland Charley, his daughters, the Plum Tree.
George Johnson: Some Charley girls?
Keven Shipman: Yes. Yeah.
George Johnson: So Roland had a couple of girls, didn’t he?
Keven Shipman: Yeah. And we have Patsy, which we interviewed as an elder a while ago who was part of that family. Her name is Patsy Sanchez today. But they would be like with the Nina Bumgarner that’s way back would be your, you know your generation.
George Johnson: I can remember, and Roland Charley had a big plum tree out in his yard. And when we were kids, we’d go over there, and plums would be ripe and they drop on the ground and they split open, and the yellow jackets would just swarm in there on ’em. And we get in and eat those brush the yellow jackets away. They didn’t sting us or anything. Just brush ’em away and eat those greengage plums. They were so good. Sweet. I can remember that. Oh, boy.
Keven Shipman: Back when you were what age?
George Johnson: Oh, I was probably about oh, 7, 8 years old then.
-Free-Range Children at Shoalwater Bay.
Keven Shipman: Oh, so you were really young. And what was it like there on the reservation, how would you describe it, I know there wasn’t a lot of people around or a lot of cars.
George Johnson: No there wasn’t. Oh, it was fun. We had we were kids then. All we did was play.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. I think your daughter called you free-range children. She said something like you were, you know, free-range children. You just wandered.
George Johnson: We brought ourselves up. We grew up by ourselves, yeah.
Keven Shipman: And why was that you think?
George Johnson: Well, why?
Keven Shipman: Because the same with my dad they were free-range children and also my generation. We were pretty much that way too. So I totally identify because that’s the way we were as well.
George Johnson: Well, my grandfather was gassed on a, on a tugboat on Willapa Bay. They were hauling the raft out of Cedar River. You know where Cedar River is?
Keven Shipman: Okay. Cedar River.
George Johnson: Okay. They were hauling the raft to log out of Cedar River for Casey’s mill company. And he went to sleep on a trip back home, tow’en that raft of logs. You know, it takes a long time to tow that raft of logs to South Bend. And he went to sleep on the bunk, and his partner was driving the boat. And he rolled off the bunk. He and he breathed all that bilge, gasoline and oil.
Brandt Ellingburg: Just poison.
George Johnson: And it gassed him. By the time he got home, he was gone.
Keven Shipman: And so that was before you were 8 years old?
George Johnson: Yeah. I was 4 years old then. No. Yeah. I was 4 years when my father was killed. Yeah.
Keven Shipman: Did you hear stories about your father of how he grew up?
George Johnson: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My father. Yeah. Yeah. My mother was the Indian part.
Keven Shipman: Oh, your mother was.
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: Was the native.
George Johnson: She was Ben Ben Armstrong’s oldest daughter. My mother was. And Liza was her second daughter. She was married to the Westport Life Saving Station captain there for a long time. Tillman Persson. Maybe you know some of these boys.
Keven Shipman: I know the name.
George Johnson: Family. Persson.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. The Persson family.
George Johnson: Yeah. They’re my cousins. We didn’t we didn’t see them much when we were kids though. They were over in Westport, and we didn’t travel much around in those days. Especially when we were little kids. When we got to Georgetown from South Bend, we pretty much stayed right there. Didn’t go anyplace.
Keven Shipman: And probably, I would imagine you traveled by water?
George Johnson: Oh, yeah. We went from South Bend to Tokeland on Independence Ferry.
Keven Shipman: There was no highway like there is today?
George Johnson: No. When I was first going to the reservation. We had to go to Chehalis from South Bend and then from Chehalis to Olympia and then back to Elma and Montesano and Aberdeen and then down. That’s when we got a shorter shorter way to that’s when the ferry went out then.
Keven Shipman: Did they take horses much at all in those days , or was it just by boat?
George Johnson: We we traveled by boat mostly. We learned how to row pretty good when we were kids. We used to row after I grew a few more years older. We row my brother and I would row from South Bend down to Georgetown Slough. We called it Georgetown Slough. And make camp, pitch a tent. And peel bark, you know, peel Chittem bark [Chinook jargon for Casara bark]. We row ten miles down from South Bend. Just kids. Peel bark. We make about $.50 cents a day then.
Keven Shipman: Did you row across the bay then?
George Johnson: We rowed down the bay.
Keven Shipman: You rowed down the bay?
George Johnson: Down the bay from South Bend. To Tokeland.
Keven Shipman: And it was like a rowboat. Did you ever see canoes?
George Johnson: We saw canoes, but they were pretty much gone when we were kids. We’ve heard stories about them, you know, before we. But we mostly row boats when we were skiffs. Like, we call them skiffs.
Keven Shipman: And you guys must have been tough. You guys must have been strong. Can you imagine?
George Johnson: And for and for a tent in those days, you know, when we pitched the tent, we just put some stakes in the ground and throw a sheet of canvas over the top of it. We didn’t have tents like they do now. Not not near. We’d call that our home, you know. We lived outside most of all summers.
Keven Shipman: Oh, did you?
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: And so you could find a job with the bark, taking the bark, make some money, hang out with family on the bay there, have a good time. .
George Johnson: Oh, we had a great time. That’s a great time to grow up. We had a great. My father, after my father was my mother never didn’t wanna get married again because she didn’t want her kids to have a stepfather. So she worked out. And so we grew up by ourselves mostly in South Bend and down on down on the reservation. We’d go down there and stay with my uncle.
Keven Shipman: What was the name of your uncle?
George Johnson: George Rogers.
Keven Shipman: Okay. Yeah. And was he Shoalwater Bay native, or did he marry a native?
George Johnson: No. He was a white man. And.
Keven Shipman: And married a native.
George Johnson: He married my mother’s sister.
Keven Shipman: Your mother’s sister. And what what was her name?
George Johnson: Lovey.
Keven Shipman: And what was your mother’s name?
George Johnson: Mary.
Keven Shipman: Mary. Okay.
George Johnson: Her oldest brother was named Charlie. And her youngest brother was named Eddie. And she had two other sisters. One was named Lottie and Anita.
Keven Shipman: Okay. And what was your birthday?
George Johnson: My birthday was May 26,1918.
Keven Shipman: And where were you born?
George Johnson: I was born in Raymond.
Keven Shipman: Okay. In Raymond.
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: Now these are the questions that my my niece likes to ask. She likes to ask you what your favorite color is.
George Johnson: My favorite color is green.
Keven Shipman: Okay. You like green? Is there a reason?
George Johnson: I like the green trees and the green grass. And.
Keven Shipman: She’ll be very happy I asked that question.
George Johnson: Oh. Yeah..
Keven Shipman: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
George Johnson: I had three brothers and one sister.
Keven Shipman: And one sister. That’s one she likes me to ask. If you were thinking of the children on the reservation now, we have a lot of children. Do you have any advice you would like to give ’em?
George Johnson: Only to be good to the mothers and fathers. And stay out of trouble. Stay away from the dope and even stay away from the cigarettes. And the alcohol and all that. Grow up, go to school, and go go to college if they can and make something of themselves. Work hard.
Keven Shipman: Oh, and a little more what it was like on the Shoalwater Bay back in those days?
George Johnson: What it was like?
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Sort of what it was like during your summers there, or what sort of things did you do.
George Johnson: Well still out to swimming, you know, right across from right across from there just as you go into the meeting hall there. Off to the right, there used to be a swimming hole there. I don’t know if still there.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. We still have swimming places there. I used to do it myself.
George Johnson: Yeah. It was kind of a slew that came out and ran almost up to the road. Mhmm. Was shallow it went dry in the summertime and and no tides. You know? And the tide is coming over that warm sand and that water would we’d get in that it was a big pool, like a big pool. And we’d swim. Oh, that was the best time in that pool. I remember that all day.
Keven Shipman: And who were you with swimming usually? Like who are the people you you were swimming with? The other kids.
George Johnson: Oh, all my cousins and all the Indian kids that were around there. Of course, I don’t know ’em much anymore.
Keven Shipman: Right. But there were a lot. They sort of all just descended on there and would have fun, it sounds like.
George Johnson: Do you remember that? Is that still there?
Keven Shipman: It’s still there. When I was a kid we did the same thing. What we also did, we built little pontoons. We took hammers and nails, and we found driftwood.
George Johnson: Oh, yeah.
Keven Shipman: And then we put boards on ’em, and then we would stand on the board and go around the bay like this.
George Johnson: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Keven Shipman: We did that.
George Johnson: Great. That’s fun. Yeah.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. We we did we did that. Just build our own little little boats or whatever, and that’s what I remember from my childhood.
George Johnson: One time I remember my uncle George Rogers. And while the Tokeland School put out bids for their wood winter wood. You know? And the people around there would bid to see who and the, the school would see who got the lowest bid.
Well, George Rogers and my grandfather got the lowest bid one year. And they cut the wood. They cut it out back. They had the logging camp out back. Out on Cedar River. And they’d haul they cut the they, of course, they had a real good chance to get the wood because they were logging, you know. And they had they they’d saved all the good wood logs like the dry snags, like the dry first snags. And the cedar they cut cedar wood and fur mostly fur. And they’d haul in over the hill from the camp from Cedar River there. On a sled. Yes.
Horse and sled, and they take it to Tokeland on the sled. And put it in a woodshed down in Tokeland, and they had me and George’s oldest boy. His name was George also. They had me in George pile the wood. But George got mad at us for piling the wood because we made too many air spaces in it. You gotta get it tight. Mhmm. But that way, it takes more wood, see, and George was thinking, we’re gonna have a couple more wood if you guys pile it like that because you know how they measured wood. By the cord. You know? And they had if if we pile the tight, would it it would take more cords.
Keven Shipman: Oh, so you were piling it tight.
George Johnson: Yeah. It’s so good.
Keven Shipman: Oh, I get it.
George Johnson: George got mad at us.
Keven Shipman: He wanted you to loosen it up a bit.
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: That makes sense.
George Johnson: These guys he was gonna cut our wages. I said he’d pay this by the nickel a nickel a day.
Keven Shipman: Wow, I would say packing it just right is a good thing. So so what happened when you were a teenager? So what did what did you do as a, a young teenager?
George Johnson: A teenager. We still would my brother and I would still row to either, North River, Smith River and camp out and cut and peel bark.
Keven Shipman: Oh, you did that a lot then?
George Johnson: Oh, yeah, even when we’re teenagers. Yeah. And that was a little make a little money to buy school clothes, you know. Because we didn’t have nothing.
Keven Shipman: So you were very poor.
George Johnson: Very poor.
Keven Shipman: And where did you go to school?
George Johnson: We went to school in South Bend.
Keven Shipman: Was it a large school? Pretty small school?
George Johnson: That was about, I think, about a hundred and fifty students overall from that is from the sixth grade to the ninth grade. I mean, twelfth grade. Sixth grade to the twelfth grade. About a hundred and fifty students.
Keven Shipman: And then what happened? Did you have any bad experiences in school?
George Johnson: Yes. We did. We grew up in school, and we had some racial problems. You know?
Keven Shipman: Why would you have racial problems?
George Johnson: Because we were part Indian.
Keven Shipman: Right. And people would make fun of you? Or?
George Johnson: Well, we were the last last to go on a party with the school kids, the last in line for a party. It said kids were having a party at school. We were the last ones chosen last one chosen for ball game or whatever. You know? We were the last people chosen for anything. It wasn’t good. But after we got so we could play baseball and football pretty good. The the kids kinda got over that because we were some of the best players they had.
Keven Shipman: Oh, really?
George Johnson: So they took us right in then.
Keven Shipman: So excelling in sports showed them. Hey, maybe we should rethink this thing? But I’m sure it was really hard for your brothers and sisters.
George Johnson: It’s hard for my mother too, to put up with that. You know?
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Would she have talks with you and try to make you feel better?
George Johnson: Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.
Keven Shipman: What would she tell you?
George Johnson: Oh, she would tell me just don’t just don’t get fighting with anybody over it. Stay cool as much as you can.
Keven Shipman: Right. And she would encourage you.
George Johnson: She encouraged us to just go ahead and mind our own business.
Keven Shipman: And she must have instilled in you to to excel and do better.
George Johnson: That’s right.
Keven Shipman: Because it sounded like you did very well.
George Johnson: We did. Yes.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Just push yourselves hard to do good in sports. Is that what she sort of did? And to also do good in your school work. So were you did your brothers and sisters, were they good at school? Or do you think they were very good or, or saw that as something they should do? Or?
George Johnson: Well, we were so poor that my oldest brother, he had to quit school and help take care of the earn a little money to take care of the family. He got a job. My mother was going with a fellow there was a machinist at the old mill there in South Bend. And he taught my oldest brother how to weld. Oh. So he took my oldest brother with him down to Vernonia, Oregon to a big logging camp down there. And put my brother to work helping him down there in the machine shop. And my brother would send the home money to my mother to help take us care of us, and my sister was the oldest sister was the same way. But she was younger. She was five years older than I, but she after she got older enough, she would work out and helped my mother too. You know, help her clean houses for these rich people. Yeah.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. It sound like they really made a sacrifice, your brother and sister for you guys. They were they really made a sacrifice for ya.
George Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. They did. I was the only one that graduated from high school out of the whole family.
Keven Shipman: And then who was the first one that went to college?
George Johnson: Oh, my oldest daughter, Gail. She, she’s 73 now. My second daughter was second to go to college. That’s Georgia. She went to Southern Oregon school and learned how to be a teacher. She taught school for quite a while. Several years. Then she married Tom Fryback. And my boy went to school, and he did really good in school. He got his doctorate degree. He’s he’s the one that lives in Silverton. He comes and sees me all the time. He’s got a nice home over there. And he and his wife have two boys. And one of them is a head chef in a big restaurant in Seattle.
Keven Shipman: So you have a very successful, generation, don’t you? You were so poor and then it it must make you really proud to see the success of this generation.
George Johnson: Yeah. I heard I heard you fellas were coming to see me. And so I tried to remember some of the things that happened. Well, one thing happened. My father had a logging camp, and he had a cookhouse right out there on the reservation and the bunkhouse in the whole work. My sister was a flunky down there then. You know, a flunky that help do the dishes pick up and serve the loggers, you know, and all that.
Well, my grandmother was very tight. And she had a big bunch of bananas there on the table, and my sister said to herself, “I’m gonna get a couple of those bananas and take George over to the logging camp in the morning.” So she took those bananas, and she put them two bananas. And they wore long stockings then and so she took one banana and put down one one leg and then the banana, and then she walked out and says, “come on, George. We’re gonna go over the hill.” And we got part way over, and she pulled up her dress, pulled down her stockings, and then that turned to banana. She said, “George, I got a banana for ya.” I’ll never forget that one.
Keven Shipman: He didn’t know what to he didn’t know what to think.
George Johnson: And I don’t I she never did say whether her grandmother missed the bananas or not.
Keven Shipman: That must have been a valuable thing, a banana.
George Johnson: That was a banana. In those days, that was like ice cream or something. You know? And I remember Dexter. He was our best friend. Dexter. Dexter. We’d get a nickel or something to go down there, and he’d have all that soda pop piled in the soda pop cartons they had those days. They had separate places for each bottle. And he’d have them piled up against the wall there. And he had strawberry and grape and lemon lime and all the root beer and all those flavors. And we’d have our nickel there, and we’d look at those boxes. And it’d take us an hour to pick out and it was warm too, you know, but that didn’t matter to us. They had no refrigeration yet. Yeah. It was still a treat. And the candy bar we had the candy counter there, and we’d look at that candy and just look at it and stare at it, although we didn’t have enough money to buy much of it.
Keven Shipman: Right. Yeah. Yeah. It must have been hard to be so poor.
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: You know, just not having enough. How did you how did you make it?
George Johnson: Everything we could do, pick berries. You know? Lots of those evergreen berries around there. And then the summer when they get ripe, there was a cannery there that bought our berries. We might maybe make a dollar a day, maybe. Maybe. If we had a good day, you know.
Keven Shipman: And you would work hard the whole day.
George Johnson: Work hard. The whole day. And but that maybe that would help buy a pair of shoes or a shirt or you know, most all the money we earn went for our clothes, clothing mostly.
Keven Shipman: Because that would be even harder going to school, in front of the kids and stuff.
George Johnson: That’s right. The other kid would have nice clothes, you know. And we weren’t ashamed of our clothes. That’s one thing my mother said. Don’t be ashamed of your clothes. There’s lots of patches on them. My mother would sew pet patches on patches, but she said, don’t be ashamed of your clothes. We never were.
Keven Shipman: Right. Yeah. You stood proud. No matter what. Because you knew you probably knew how hard it was to get those clothes.
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: So what did you do for entertainment? Did you have a television?
George Johnson: No.
Keven Shipman: Or anything? Radio?
George Johnson: No. No. No. We didn’t have radio down there. We some of the people in our town would have radio. You know? I don’t think we got a radio until I went to high school. And our I bought our first radio when I went to work for after I got out of high school. I got a job with the highway department.
Keven Shipman: Okay. So that sounds like a good job.
George Johnson: Well, my father-in-law was, I was going with a girl who was a foreman on a highway department, and he got me the job. I was going with his daughter. See? And it was still hard times then. It was still in the late thirties then. You know? But the other kid the other man didn’t didn’t think too much of that because I got a job I was working, and some of them weren’t weren’t wor working.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. It’s just good like President Thomas Jefferson. He married good. So did Washington. Yeah. That’s how you get it. That’s how you do it sometimes. So now in high school, did you play sports?
George Johnson: Oh, yes.
Keven Shipman: And what sports did you play?
George Johnson: Football and basketball.
Keven Shipman: Okay. And you must have done really well in those.
George Johnson: Yeah. We we did. My brother was a star. My brother was 2 years older than I. And he got grew up. He never did graduate, but he played until he was 19. After 19, you couldn’t play anymore. But he still had one more year to go to school after he was 19, so he couldn’t play his last year. But he was a star there for a couple years.
Keven Shipman: So you worked in the high highway? And then what happened after that?
George Johnson: Well, I married his daughter then.
Keven Shipman: Oh, okay. So you made a good marriage as well?
George Johnson: Yeah. See, I met my wife when I was three years old. And she was six months old. They were working down on the straights in Willapa Bay, you know. You know where the straights are? Well, they were logging over on the mainland then. And my my girl girlfriend, the baby’s father was logging there. And he lived in a little little house there on the bay, and he was working in one of those logging camps. And that and his wife called my mother one day and said, you have to come down and told my mother you have to come down and see our baby. And I was 6 years old. So my mother took me down to see the baby, and it turned out to be my wife. We went to grade school together and high school together. And then we got married. She I was 22, and she was 19. We lived together 67 years.
Keven Shipman: So you had a good fulfilling marriage, it sounds like. And then what happened after what was your next job?
George Johnson: I went and I went logging.
Keven Shipman: Okay. Then you were a logger for most life?
George Johnson: Yes.
Keven Shipman: That’s that’s pretty normal at in Raymond, isn’t it? There were I think there’s oyster people. There were a lot of.
George Johnson: Yeah. We worked on oysters a lot when we were in high school. We used to pick ’em, you know, at night. No. In those days, they picked them by hand. You know? Now that I think they dredge them mostly now, with dredges. But we picked them and then we opened them at the cannery. Any yeah. We learned all the how to do all that work. Then we started buying all of our own clothes then. You know? We.
Keven Shipman: You were getting more money.
George Johnson: Get more money.
Keven Shipman: Okay. Let’s take a little break. I wanna see if my recorder’s doing good.
Hello? Okay. Hello? Okay. We heard a really good story about that he told that Gus Davis was just could pitch so fast, it could go through like a brick wall. And.
Brandt Ellingburg: Tried for the, the Seattle Rainiers.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. He tried out for the Seattle Rainiers.
Brandt Ellingburg: Professional baseball team.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. He they were so good. And Roland Charley and that whole, you know, Chief Charley. They started that baseball team. And they had a big doings at Bay Center, and they would their canoes across the bay. And they would play them.
Brandt Ellingburg: They played against South Bend. They’d yeah. The native team would come and give the white team a whoopen. That was what they did every year.
Keven Shipman: And that was one of really the joys.
Brandt Ellingburg: The highlights of their years.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Is to do that.
Brandt Ellingburg: Beating the white white team.
Keven Shipman: So so then, of course, you had a a long and fulfilling marriage, which sounds really good. You’re very proud of your family.
George Johnson: Oh, yes.
Keven Shipman: How they how they it sounds good. And after you did logging, did you do something other than logging in?
George Johnson: Yeah we, I logged until 1958. Then there was a fellow in Raymond, they wanted me to go building houses with him. So I, I would learn a little about building. When we were off logging in the wintertime and all that, I would get a job helping build. I would I’d get a job with the builder and help build. You know? So I learned a little bit about it. And then he took me down, and we moved to Medford. We both moved our families to Medford, Oregon. And we built 26 home new homes down there. Three bedroom homes.
Then now my Georgia graduated from Medford down there. And Greg, both. My oldest daughter was in Washington State College then. That was our first year over there. And Georgia and Greg both graduated from Medford. Then they both got married and moved north. And, eventually, Greg and his wife got there to Silverton. And Georgia got to Portland. So that’s why I’m here. He wanted me to move closer to them. See, I lived in Medford all alone. My wife had passed away in 2005. That’s been about 5, 6 years ago. And so Greg and Georgia wanted me to move closer to them, so that’s why I’m here.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. It sound you have a family that really loves you, it sounds like. You know?
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: And when Georgia talked about you, she sounded very excited and very happy.
George Johnson: Oh, yeah.
Keven Shipman: I know about you. So you have a you’re very lucky.
George Johnson: And Georgia is something else.
Keven Shipman: Is she?
George Johnson: She is a great lady.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. She sounds very nice. She’s always she sounds very supportive. You know? And and she talked to Misty, my niece, a bit. And she was real happy and supportive. So we, we really appreciate you you speaking with us. And, hopefully, we’ll get another time to talk with you and come visit you sometime.
George Johnson: Well I hope I go to the meeting next August.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Yeah.
Brandt Ellingburg: General Counsel?
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Definitely. Have you been to many General Counsels?
George Johnson: It’s been I think 4 years since I’ve been to one of those meetings.
Keven Shipman: Okay. So it’s been a it’s been a little while.
George Johnson: Yeah. I’ve been a while.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. You’re always welcome up on the bay. And if you’re if you’re there, we’ll certainly say hi.
George Johnson: I know that.
Keven Shipman: Come come to us and tell us hi, and we’ll, you know.
George Johnson: There’s a great bunch of people.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. They’re really.
George Johnson: Great.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. Yeah. They really are.
George Johnson: I always enjoy going up there.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. And we brought you a gift and Brandt can present it to ya. Yeah. We brought you my sister’s a real artist and she prepared this for you as a gift. It’s an eagle.
George Johnson: Oh boy.
Keven Shipman: It’s an eagle feather.
George Johnson: Is it is that eagle.
Keven Shipman: It’s a real eagle feather. Yeah.
George Johnson: It is that.
Keven Shipman: And these are all eagle feathers.
George Johnson: Oh.
Keven Shipman: She prepared that and.
George Johnson: That is wonderful.
Keven Shipman: Yeah. We really appreciate you speaking with us. And.
George Johnson: That is great. Boy, oh, boy. Thank you, much.
Keven Shipman: That’s from the Shoalwater Bay Tribe.
George Johnson: I’ll keep that the rest of my life.
Keven Shipman: Certainly. So yeah. And we we, again, we really appreciate. Do you need to do any, any?
George Johnson: That’s that’s great.
Brandt Ellingburg: Yeah. I’m curious.
Keven Shipman: Maybe you hold the feather or?
Brandt Ellingburg: Yeah. That’d be great. What what is this piece of art you’ve got over here on the lamp over here? This it looks like a little kind of like a dream catcher. You’ve got over here? Yeah. I’m curious to where you.
George Johnson: Yeah. That’s from reservation.
Brandt Ellingburg: Is it? Oh, is it?
George Johnson: Yeah. He gave it to me. Some of the kids up there. They also made that.
Brandt Ellingburg: The blanket?
Keven Shipman: Oh, yeah. I recognize that. That was probably given to you at a General Counsel or something.
George Johnson: That what?
Keven Shipman: Are, when you were up at the Shoalwater Bay, they gave that to you?
George Johnson: Yeah.
Keven Shipman: See, that’s nice. Yeah. That’s nice.
George Johnson: At which everybody likes it. Everybody comes in here.
Shoalwater Bay Community. 