James W. Johnson, also known as J.W. wrote about the people and stories he grew up knowing, not about the good old West or the heroes later depicted in the movies.
Born February 2, 1885 in Huntington Utah, J.W. was the oldest of five children of James P. Johnson and his wife Jane Leonard. He was naturally bright and quickly advanced from Eighth Grade directly to Brigham Young Academy. When old enough to strike out on his own, like Zane Grey and other Western Authors, he learned he needed to be a jack of many trades to survive life.
He studied classical painting at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. While there, the poetic muse struck him during a walk through the Queen's Wood, and he composed an idyll praising the beauty of those woods. The poem was later read at his funeral, but has unfortunately since been lost. Several of his paintings survive to this day.
When he returned from Holland, J.W. resumed his studies at the newly renamed Brigham Young University, where he finished his degree in Art and Music. He married his childhood sweetheart, who had waited for him, and took up teaching English, music & art. He soon became director of English and Music in the Provo, Utah, schools.
The death of his wife and child in childbirth prompted a move to Arizona where he became in turn a newspaper owner, a general store owner, a chiropractor, and a lawyer. J.W. remained passionate to his avocation, painting. His paintings of Arizona Indian dwellings and villages still survive.
J.W. married Louise Chidester in 1925. After a honeymoon driving the Pacific coast highway, they ended up in Portland. Louise (going by the name of "Madame Louise") opened a beauty shop on the second floor of Meier and Frank's department store in downtown Portland. She imported and used the first electric permanent wave machine west of the Mississippi. During this time, they lived in Vancouver, Washington, across the river, and commuted to work by streetcar each day.
J.W. spent most of his time looking into the types of opportunities that had served him well in Arizona, but found it more difficult to make a good living in Oregon. The couple moved to Boise where they founded "Madame Louise's College of Beauty Culture". They lobbied the legislature and manage to get the first licensing law in Idaho passed for beauty shops and cosmetologists.
J.W. and a partner went prospecting, and staked a gold mining claim on the Boise River. They worked the claim using hydraulic giants for one season, and then cleaned up the sluice boxes. During the clean-up, J.W. was exposed to mercury vapor and became violently ill. After he recovered, he discovered that the mine foreman and the gold had both disappeared.
The loss of the gold meant another move, this time to Emmett, Idaho, in 1929. The move also saw the birth of "Better Beauty Shop" in Emmett, owned and operated by Louise until her death in 1980.
J.W., ever the carpenter's son, built two rental houses in Emmett, and finished them just in time for the depression to hit full tilt. The lumber company foreclosed on both houses. J.W. could not find a job because he was over 40 years old. The family moved to the room back of the beauty shop, and writing became J.W.'s vocation. They lived there until 1937, when the beauty shop's building burned down. J.W. had been building a home for them, and Louise, J.W., and their son moved in with nothing but the clothes on their backs even though the building was not yet done.
J.W. became a prolific writer of pulp westerns from his first sale of "When Diablo Mendez Speaks" to the early Westerner Magazine. His writing provided a much-needed boost to their income. In 1929, he started near full time work on The Bitterroot Trail and spent the next six years of his life researching and writing it. Once The Bitterroot Trail was published, the Yale Manuscript Library asked for the manuscript and all the research notes. Copies of the 1935 Caxton Printers, Ltd. edition remain in demand at rare bookstores around the USA.
J.W. kept on with his painting, but never wrote another novel. He began to investigate meta-physics and religion instead, continuing until his death in November 1957.
James R. Johnson, May 2007
Michael D. Johnson, May 2007
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