Ruth N. Johnson

Delivered by a neighbor/midwife, Ruth N. Johnson was born the fourth child of five to Herman and Helen DeVries on a dry land farm near Roberts, Montana. At the age of 4, her younger brother Martin died and also her mother. Her Aunt Grace and grandmother Amelia DeVries cared for her briefly after her mother’s death. She was no stranger to hard work growing up, as Ruth and her three sisters worked beside their dad in the fields during spring planting and fall harvest. They herded livestock, milked cows, and cared for a large flock of poultry.

Herman attempted to send his four daughters, Ruth, Dorothy, Ethel and Louise, to the Victory School located about a mile from their farmhouse. When Ruth reached fifth grade, the County Superintendent at the time asked them to leave, as her father did not own property in the Victory school district. So, Ruth attended Cherry Springs, a four-mile distance to travel by horseback in the winter months. She had five wire farm gates to open and close. Finally, to alleviate the problem, Herman bought land in the Victory School District. However, when Ruth reached eighth grade, she found that the teacher was only required to teach a specific number of grades and not grade eight; Ruth repeated the seventh grade. Bright and a natural speed-reader, she took her eighth grade state exam in Joliet in the spring of 1935 and passed. Ruth rode horseback a distance of nine miles from her father Herman’s farm between Boyd and Cherry Springs and Roberts High School in the fall until winter weather arrived. The first year of high school she boarded with her grandparents, Lammert and Amelia DeVries, and walked to school. As a sophomore she stayed with her sister, Dorothy, and husband Francis Pihlaja on Clear Creek, the farm often referred to as the Clifford Lukenbach farm. The last two years of high school she boarded with Chet and Susie Olels below the Rock Creek Bridge near Roberts. Each location required a considerable walk or horseback ride to school. Ruth was determined to graduate and did so in 1939, the only person in her family to earn a high school diploma. She dreamed of studying nursing, but had no path to higher education.

Instead, she stayed at home and cooked and cared for her grandfather, Lammert DeVries. In the fall of 1939, Ruth married William E. Johnson, her high school sweetheart, and worked his family’s farm.

Ruth’s desire to become a nurse was fulfilled in 1968 when she received certification as a licensed practical nurse under an educational program administered through the local hospital to meet a nursing shortage. Dr. James Kane instructed the experienced nurses aides to meet the need for the opening of a new extended care wing. Although she worked in most nursing-related areas of the Carbon County Memorial Hospital, Ruth spent much of her time working in long-term care. She continued in this profession for nearly 29 years. Of all of her nursing duties, she best loved caring for newborns and their mothers. Her gentle giving and caring spirit was always a part of those days.

Ruth died at 96 years of age on February 1, 2018 in Billings, Montana, surrounded in the love of her family.

The Ruth N. Johnson Memorial Scholarship was established to honor her memory and help fulfill the dreams of other determined students called to nursing.

Walking Through the Snow Like She Did

Fifteen months of age—
far too young to be aware of
her walk through the snow-packed streets,
blocks from a city hospital,
to wait by my beside,
hopeful I would survive
a winter bout with pneumonia.
What did I really know then
about a mother’s love?
Much later in life,
her country commute to another hospital-
work as a geriatric nurse,
money for our educations.
More than once she
drove in the brittle cold
late in the night
on unplowed county roads
bucking drifts and
blinded by blizzards.
With flashlight in hand and
her face pelted by
the stinging snow,
she walked the impassable distance
over a swampy bottomland—
home to a ranch house,
flanked by only
barbed wire fences
to guide her.
I never asked about her travel
that night.

Five decades later,
she is still here—
but unable to speak.
As I brush her silver hair,
I hope that the
expression on my face and
the look in my eyes shows
how much I love her-
how grateful I am to her for
walking through the snow like she did.

© Sandy Barker, December 11, 2012