The Johnson Brothers

THE JOHHNSON BROTHERS. - If those who claim that fortune has favored certain individuals above others will but investigate the cause of success and failure, it will be found that the former is largely due to the improvement of opportunity, the latter to the neglect of it. Fortunate environments encompass nearly every man at some stage of his career, but the strong man and the successful man is he who realizes that the proper moment has come, that the present and not the future holds his opportunity. The man who makes use of the Now and not the To Be is the one who passes on the highway of life others who started out ahead of him, and reaches the goal of prosperity in advance of them. It is this quality in the Johnson brothers, who are most successfully engaged in the dairy business in the vicinity of Rosedale, Kansas, that has won them an enviable name in connection with business interests in this section of the old Sunflower state.

The Johnson family is a stanch old Swedish stock. Charles Johnson, father of Dave, Fred and Charles Johnson, of this notice, was born and reared in Sweden, where was solemnized his marriage to Miss Emma Stolz and where he resided during his entire life time. He was engaged in agricultural pursuits during the major portion of his active career and he was summoned to the life eternal in the year 1891, at the age of forty-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Johnson became the parents of six children, whose names are here entered in respective order of birth: Hilda, (died in infancy); Dave, Fred, Charles, Oscar and Anna. The year after the father's demise the mother with her five surviving children, immigrated to the United States, locating in Kansas, at Rosedale. Here the mother began to keep house for her brother, F. O. Nordwall, who had come to America in the year 1885 and who at that time engaged in the dairy business at Rosedale. The children grew up in the home of their uncle and it was under his guidance that they thoroughly familiarized themselves with the ins and outs of the dairy business.

Dave Johnson was born in Sweden, as was also his brothers, the date of his nativity being the 15th of January, 1877; Fred Johnson was born on the 20th of September, 1879; and the natal day of Charles is the 11th of November, 1881. They were all reared through early boyhood on their father's farm in Sweden, in which place they received their early educational training, the same having been supplemented by further study after their arrival in Kansas. In 1901 the Johnson brothers began business at Rosedale with sixteen head of cattle and a milk route which they had previously purchased. Since that time they have retailed and wholesaled milk and at the present time they are the owners of eighty head of cows, each of which gives about three and a half gallons of milk per day. Their pasturage near Rosedale consists of eighty acres of land, and in 1908 they bought another tract of land, consisting of thirteen and a half acres of land, near Argentine, where they also conduct a dairy. In their various business enterprises the Johnson brothers have achieved noteworthy success and inasmuch as their present high position in the business world of Rosedale is entirely the result of their own well directed endeavors it is the more gratifying to contemplate. Their sterling integrity of character and splendid executive ability command to them the unalloyed confidence and esteem of all with whom they have come in contact.

In their political convictions they are aligned as uncompromising supporters of the principles and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor and while they have never manifested aught of ambition for the honors or emoluments of public office Charles has served with the utmost efficiency as constable of Rosedale, he having been incumbent of that important position from 1905 to 1907. Charles was at one time a valued and appreciative member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Dave was united in marriage to Miss Ellen Gustafson in 1901 and to this marriage have been born five children, whose names are here entered: Elmer, Raymond, Ellen, Carl and Fred, two of whom are pupils in the public school at Rosedale. Fred married, in 1905, Mrs. Louise Vistol, widow of Mr. Vistol. They have one child, Ellis, and Mrs. Johnson had one child by her former marriage, Moody. The Johnson brothers are very popular in this neighborhood by reason of their fair and honorable business methods and their respective homes are recognized as centers of most gracious and generous hospitality.