The Johnson Lumber Company

The lumberyard where my father was the part-time bookkeeper was during its heyday an important part of the Gowrie economy. In addition to selling lumber and other building materials, the firm was active in constructing houses, farm buildings, stores and other structures. They were the main contractor in the construction of the Lutheran church building, which was really a very substantial undertaking for a firm of their size. Later on as I have already mentioned they expanded into the grain business and gradually extended the area that their activities occupied.

When we were on the farm my father would drive into town after supper to work on the books and occasionally Clarice or I would go along to prepare itemized statements for various of the projects or purchases. These were simply listings of prices of materials that had been sold or of the charges for labor. In the winter time the office was on the cool side and I can recall wishing for a little more heat. My father typically stood while he was working, using the old hand-operated adding machine.

Sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s my father left the county treasurer’s office and went to work full-time at the lumber company. The work at the treasurer’s office was more stressful than at the lumberyard. My father had a congenial relationship with the two owners (Carl J. was the man in charge of the construction work, etc., while Axel was the “indoor” man and handled the bookkeeping and the financial side of things). So it was with Axel that my father had most contact.

I think the latter years my father worker were happier years for him. The family was back in town, the financial pressures were much abated (by that time the farm, which my father had inherited when my grandfather Strand’s estate was settled, was finally free of debt, and the indebtedness of my uncle Reuben was at last accounted for) and my father could in his spare time indulge in the gardening activities and cleanup work on the farm that he enjoyed.

After the war was over, a son-in-law of Axel’s came to work for the firm and his activities gradually led to a lessening of the financial condition of the firm. Eventually the two brothers decided to split the business and for a while Carl had a separate construction business. Axel continued at the same original location but eventually tat ceased operation. I don’t know now if there is any building material supply outlet in Gowrie. I believe that both Verner and Marold worked as day laborers for the Johnson lumber company at times. Verner has in the past made some barbed remarks about Carl’s employment practices. I guess he was a member of the old school who figured he was entitled to a full day’s work for a full day’s pay.

Axel was a dark, rather saturnine individual with a good eye for the dollar and had the appellation by some of the locals as the “Swedish Jew.” Carl was the larger man, sort of stooped or hunched from hard labor and a more bluff-mannered individual but still somewhat reserved. He had bought the more westerly lot of the three lots that my grandfather Strand had originally bought in Gowrie and had built one of the few brick houses in Gowrie on it. It was next to the old Nils Lindquist house, the best house in town.

One recollections I have of the Johnsons relates neither to Carl or Axel but rather to Axel’s wife. On some occasion I was in the audience at the new church, it must have been in connection with one of the women’s groups in the church (i.e., either the Ladies Aid or the Missionary Society) and Mrs. Axel was giving some sort of talk or report. She had brought along with her several of her young children (this was before the days of babysitters) and she left them in the pew when she went to give her talk. They ended up playing at her feet at the front of the church. She seemed to have done a better job a raising her family than Mrs. Carl did. One of Mrs. Axel’s sons, Thatcher, became some sort of Iowa state official. Carl’s only son, though an intelligent individual, ended up his life as an alcoholic.