ALLAN OSCAR JOHNSON

Below:  Aldon, Edythe & Miriam Johnson

ALLEN OSCAR JOHNSON


Obtained from his daughter, Miriam

Taken from a Tape

My parents blessed me with the name of Allan Oscar Johnson and I was born in Murray, Utah, on April 20, 1905. I didn’t remember when we moved to Idaho but I was told that I was about a year and one half old when we moved to Idaho from Murray, Utah. We moved by means of team and wagon. This was in March when the weather was still quite cold. I rode the distance but I don’t remember any of that particular ride. My father managed to build a simple home and father farmed the place and did very well although he was very inexperienced.

One of the first things I remember was when I was about four years of age it was one of the first exciting things, Father was working in the field and mother wanted Gerda, my older sister, and I to take lunch out to father in the field because he was tending water and he couldn’t leave the water. We got about half way out to the field where father was and we saw what we thought was a big gray wolf and it scared us and so we ran back to the house. We dropped the lunch pail and spilled all the lunch and when we ran we were screaming all the way for mother and she came out and we told her there was a big gray wolf after us. She said no there couldn’t be. We said it was so. She went out with us and we happened to see this big gray animal and she said it wasn’t a wolf, but a big greyhound dog. It was so enormous we thought it was a big wolf. Any way, that scare left an impression on my life, as I was very young.

But the thing I remember was when I got a kiddy car for Christmas. It was homemade affair but it served the purpose.

I also remember when our family and the Olsen Family and the Anderson family decided to take a trip into the hills with us as a family unit and I remember Father making a whistle. I was whistling that for days. I do remember that trip. It was one of the exciting things of my life, something I will never forget.

And another exciting thing in my life was when I must have been around five and one half years old. Anyway, I was to start school and I needed a tablet and a pencil and my older sister said that she would get the tablet and pencil for me when she came home from school. We lived a mile and a half away from school and she had to walk all the way. When I decided it was about time she should be coming home, I decided to go meet her and I ran about a half-mile down to meet her just to get that tablet and pencil. That was one of the prizes of my life.

And also, when I reached the age of 8 years old, father bought me a bicycle, for me from Santa Claus. I learned later who Santa Claus was. Anyway, that was a wonderful gift. I really treasured that, and tried to take really good car of it.

There are several things that happened in my life, but some of them I would have to ponder on in order to put them in story form. I would like to tell you a little about my early chores that I had to do. I started going chores very young because I was the oldest boy in the family. We started thinning and hoeing beets when I was six year old. I remember too, I would help father cultivate beets. At that time we didn’t have modern tractor equipment like we do now. And we didn’t even have modern horse drawn equipment at that time. Father had a little two-row cultivator that had handles on it like a hand plow. It had bars underneath. It had a shaft under for a single horse. We hooked it up, too. Father couldn’t drive the horse and guide the cultivator too. So when I was very young, I would ride the horse and guide the horse and keep the horse from stepping on the rows of beets. I didn’t succeed and the horse stepped on the row. Whenever the horse would step on the row of beets then father would give me a little lecture. So I had to be very attentive of where the horse would put its feet. But anyway, we accomplished the job of cultivating the beets that way.

It was later that we got a larger cultivator that used two horses instead of one. And a person could drive the horses from a seat on this cultivator and guide the cultivator with his feet, up and down the rows. Now the younger people of today probably don’t even remember this machine. It was a modern machine at that time. I started plowing with a team when I was twelve years old. We had two horses. One was a fast horse and one a slow horse. I always had to hang on the fast one and hold it back so that the slow horse would do a little of the work. And that really put a drag on me and made me very tired. I would have to sit down in the furrow and rest occasionally. Well, I would like to give some more later but at the present time this should suffice.

New Tape

I’d probably like to start about the time I was called on my first mission. I didn’t hardly feel that I was ready to go on a mission yet. When I had my interview with my Bishop he felt that I should prepare to go on a mission. He said he would give me a month to think and pray about it. This frightened me as I didn’t think I was well enough versed in the Gospel. I talked it over with Father and Mother. They were thrilled to have me go. They suggest that I start studying more, so I consented.

I was ordained an Elder and in the Elders group meetings I received a lot of help. I questioned my testimony. I prayed for a testimony. This worried me quite a little so I decided that I would have to do a lot of praying to get an answer, some kind of assurance that was the thing I should do. So I did each night and then one time I happened to have a dream and I woke up at the close of this dream and I determined that this was in answer to my prayers. I dreamed that I was out in the filed watering potatoes and I had a stream of water coming down the ditch. And it necessitated working real fast to get the water set in as many rows as possible before the stream got there and so I was working real hard. And while I was working I noticed that the atmosphere was getting darker. So I looked up and saw heavy black clouds approaching. I thought it looked like we were going to have a heavy rainstorm and then I realized that it didn’t seem like rain clouds but smoke, I observed that it was fire. So I dropped my shovel and started running.


I felt impressed to go to the Church. I was closer there than I was home, so I ran as fast as I could. And as I ran I didn’t realize that I had heavy boots on and so by the time I got to the Church I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it or not. I was so tired. I didn’t know if I could make it at all. I soon became exhausted. I finally made it there. The Bishop was just ready to close the door. Just as I got there and before he closed the door I looked back and the trees across the street were bursting into flame one right after the other in sort of a chain reaction and the Bishop closed the door. We were in there for some time. I don’t know just how long we were in there. I don’t have any idea how long it was but we were pretty suffocating for the want of fresh air as the church was pretty well filled up and finally the Bishop said it was all right to open the door and we opened the door and all the landscape was black between our building and the 1st Ward Church which was the other side of town. Before the fire there was a lot of trees and buildings, we had no chance of seeing the other church and when we came out after the fire then we could see the other church standing there all alone. And I decided this was my answer, that I was representing the True Church. The lord was telling me hat those who are valiant in the church shall be saved when the earth will be destroyed.

I told the Bishop that I would go so we prepared the paper work and when the papers came back with my call, I was called to the Swedish Mission. So I went into the mission field with this dream on y mind. I went for a long time and never said anything to anyone. I believe I told Rula about it but I was afraid that I would be ridiculed for dreaming a dream, that really sounded foolish, when I mentioned the trees bursting into flame in a chain reaction. Several years later some scientists were reporting on the Atomic combustion and he mentioned in his report he feared that sometime in the future they would create some kind of explosion that would create a chain reaction of the atmosphere. With that in mind that went along with the dream I had, I felt like I could mention it without being ridiculed. That was the first experience I had that the lord does answer prayers. And the testimony that I would like to bear at this time is that the lord does answer our prayers if we are sincere and persistent in trying to receive an answer for a just cause.

Well, when the time came for me to leave on my mission. I got the call in December 1923 and I was to leave on the 2nd of February 1924. There was quite a lot of snow on the ground at the time when I went down to the train. When the train came, we exchanged farewell greetings. Mother had tears in her eyes when I boarded the train. The family was there and a few other people. At that time we didn’t have a Mission Training Center. We remained in Salt Lake long enough to go through the temple and be set apart for our mission, and receive our papers and instructions then we would take off. I tried to get a visa in my passport. I was called to the Swedish mission but the Swedish delegate there in Salt Lake City refused to sign my visa so I was told to stop at Chicago and try to get a visa there, but failed to get a visa there either for my passport, so I went on toe New York to try again to get a visa for my passport.

B. H. Roberts was the President of the Eastern States Mission and he tried very hard to encourage them to give me a visa. We learned that they had a campaign started in Sweden against the Mormon Missionaries. Anyone born out of the country was having difficulty and those born in the country were the ones who could go into the country and do missionary work.

Anyway, In New York, when I was refused there, they decided I should go on to Oslo, Norway because the boat was going to land there first and then from there on to Copenhagen, Denmark. That was the thing we did.

I would like to mention the experience I had with Dr. B. H. Roberts, one of the most thrilling experiences I have ever had in my life. He was a great spiritual man and he did so much to encourage myself and other missionaries who were traveling to other missions in my same group. And I learned to really appreciate his great writings, the church history and other writings.

As we had to wait for two days for an appointment to the Swedish Consulate when we arrived in Oslo, Norway, we decided to go with some other missionaries to a ski resort and enjoy the World Skiing meet. That was a wonderful experience, watching the ski champions from around the world perform. We had a good viewing spot close to the king’s platform. Skiers would come down the run reaching speeds up to 80 miles per hour. When they left he ramp and would fly through the air several hundred feet before they came down to the runway again. Some would fail to remain upright on their skis. They would go on down the slick slope on their stomach, back, seat, or however. One skier broke a leg and had to be carried off on a stretcher. This experience helped to ease my concern about getting a visa.

The next day we went down to the Norwegian Embassy. We also learned about a new leader who had pledged to slop the work of the missionaries for the Mormon Church. A decision was made that I go to Denmark and try again. If that failed I could stay in the Danish Mission. An older missionary, who had boarded the ship at New York, left me at Oslo, Norway. He had received his visa. He was born in Sweden and had come back to visit his native land. He boarded the train at Oslo, which took him across the country to Stockholm, Sweden.

On our way to Copenhagen, Denmark we had sailed for a half-day breaking our way through rather thin ice up to six inches thick. We finally hit ice that stopped the ship. They would reverse the ship for 1000 feet or more, then make a run for it and hit the ice. This would jar the whole ship. It would grind the ice four or five hundred feet and stall. After the third try they decided to wire and have an icebreaker come to our aid. We waited for about 20 hours before the icebreaker arrived.

In the meantime the captain permitted some of the passengers to climb down a rope ladder to play on the ice and go out far enough to take pictures of the ship. When the icebreaker did arrive, it was interesting to see how the icebreaker did its job. The front of the ship was sledded back some distance. The force of the propellers would cause the front of the ship to sled up on the ice. Then the weight of the ship would break the ice down and the chunks of ice would pile up on the sides of the ship and allow it to pass through. Our ship followed in the path made by the icebreaker. We finally arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark after six days from Oslo, Norway. It was an interesting voyage. We saw a few other ships stalled in the ice waiting for help. But when we did get to Denmark, the visa was again refused.

After about a month’s effort they decided they would agree to sign my passport visa on condition that I should do no propaganda work about Mormonism B just visit with family and friends there. We contacted the mission president and asked him what we should do. We were told to sign the affidavit and they would try to correct the condition from inside Sweden. I received permission from the Mission President to go to Sweden. They though they could get it straightened out when I got in and so I proceeded to proselyte.

I proceeded in Stockholm. There I was again refused a visa but I was permitted to stay in the country to visit friends and relatives for two months. It was agreed that I could probably do some missionary work while visiting with friends and relatives, which we did. I was finally sent up to a district. I had been there about three months when I received worked from the mission president that the authorities knew where I was and they were on their way up to escort me out of the country. I had been in the country then three months beyond d the visa period that I had. When I learned that the authorities were coming to pick me up I was told to pack up and come to Stockholm, which I did. And when we got there the conference president went with me down to the police station and they gave me a six months jail sentence for remaining in the country without a visa, that didn’t set too well. One of the conference authorities said that I could try again and if I failed I could preach to the prisoners. I made the remark that I had been called to teach people and not to the prisoners.

We reported this to the American Embassy in Stockholm, also we notified Senator Smoot in Washington D. C. As a result of this I was released on condition that I would leave Sweden within ten days and they decided to send me to Denmark. There I learned that other missionaries who were born outside of Sweden also had similar difficulties.

I went to Denmark and served there for about six months waiting for a transfer. After waiting for some time in Denmark, waiting for a transfer to a permanent mission, I was having difficulty changing to the Danish Language to teach the Gospel. My mother and father were both born in Sweden so I was somewhat familiar with that Language. In the meantime President McKay who was serving as the Mission President of the European mission finished his mission and left shortly after I had gone to Denmark and Dr. James E. Talmage was the new mission president. And for some reason or other the records that I had been sent to Denmark had been lost and I continued working there thinking this is where I would be serving. I finally received a letter stating an apology for forgetting that I had never received an official transfer and the transfer said that I was to go to England. So I labored for 5 months in Sweden, 6 months in Denmark, and 14 months in England. I did have a lot of experiences in all three.

One time my companion and I decided to try going without purse or script. And so my companion, who was from Layton, Utah, went with me and we walked up north through the timber area. We walked the biggest part of the day to try and reach Farling, (Denmark) and when we got there we were very hungry and this was a place where there were a lot of berries. We ate these berries to relieve the hunger we felt and then we walked to try to find a family by the name of Lars Anderson. A short distance from Farling there was a timber cutting settlement. We located this Lars Anderson and he was so happy because we were the first missionaries he had seen for several years. And so he took us in and fed us, which we appreciated very much and then helped us arrange the use of this one room schoolhouse to hold meetings in. This was done and we advertised as best we could through talking to some of these men down at the lumber mill. And when we held the meeting there was only two people that came in and sat down. We noticed that there were a lot of people outside so we went out and tried to encourage them to come in and it didn’t seem that we had any influence on them. Finally after quite a bit of time and one of the fellows that had gone inside went out and talked to them a, about a dozen people came in and sat down and so we started.

We started the meeting with a short introduction then my companion who had a better command of the language was going to give the sermon. While I was talking another person sneaked in a just casually and he sat down in the back, and so we proceed with the meeting. After the meeting, we went back to visit with the group and get their response and several of the people rushed out as fast as they could, but we have a good meeting with some of them.

Then we were to locate Lars Anderson’s family and so we asked Brother Anderson where we could locate his family. He said one of them lives too far away to walk but another lived about 10 miles. We asked for directions to visit him but he said you wouldn’t’ find him by the name of Anderson. His name would be Larson. In as much as his first name was Lars, so the son would be Larson, so we ventured forth and found his son and his family and we had a fairly interesting conversation with him. But he was hesitant to take on any responsibility to further the work of the Church. That concludes that experience. We felt that the effort that we put forth in attempting to travel without purse or script to teach the Gospel was successful to a degree.

Experiences in the civic and general temporal field by Allan Oscar Johnson

In 1933, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt became President, he introduced the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) to improve the plight the farmers were in. This called for organizing the farmers so they could work towards bettering their condition. This organization extended from the grass roots, the Farmers themselves through to the Secretary of Agriculture (Secretary Wickard).

At the meeting of the farmers in Shelley, Idaho District, I was elected chairman. Three others were chosen to represent committees in the district. We met to discuss programs to help the farming industry. An allotment program was adopted to limit production to maintain fair prices to the farmers. The State committee was allotted so many acres, which was distributed to the counties. These allotments were distributed to the various committees. We in turn divided our acres to the farmers in our district.

We also had to police the farmers to see that they did not over plant. If they over planted, they were penalized. I was reelected chairman for each year for six years. At that time the county was reorganized. Philip Dance was made county chairman. I was made vice chairman. After one year Dance resigned and I was again elected chairman.

This is a part of the history that Dad wrote himself, so please excuse the duplications.


I am Allan Oscar Johnson, the second child born to my mother and father. I was born on April 20, 1905 in Murray, Utah. My father worked in the smelters there in Utah. When I was about one and a half years my parents moved to Shelley, Idaho to a farm there that Dad had bought. He was very new to farming and so he had to learn the hard way to farm. He had to learn the farming trade pretty much from scratch. As I got old enough and could understand a few things, I would follow father around and learned quite a bit in my early years of life.

One of the earliest things I remember about school was about 5, my older half sister was going to school in Shelley and my folks gave me a nickel and a penny. The nickel was to buy a tablet and the penny was to buy a penny pencil and it was very hard for me to wait for her to come home because she was going to buy them for me and bring them home to me. I remember how thrilled I was to receive it. I did a lot of practice writing, or course, most of it was scribbling. I learned how to scribble first then how to make a similitude of a house with windows in. You can imagine what they looked like though. But it was interesting to me to be able to create something like that on paper.

As I grew older my sister and I started working in the fields early. We were the two oldest children so we learned to thin beets early in life, as soon as we were able to learn to handle a hoe. That was my first experience with having a real job to do. I don’t recall receiving any money for it but it was something we were expected to do.

Life Sketch of Allan O. Johnson given at his Funeral in Wendell, Idaho

He was born in Murray, Utah to Carl Oscar Johnson and Gerda Theresia Hanson Johnson on April 20, 1905. He was raised in Shelley, Idaho on a farm just east of Shelley, on the Taylor Road.

He served a six month mission to Sweden and then was transferred to Denmark for five months and then to England for the balance of his mission time. The story of his mission is told in this history in another place.

When he returned home from his mission he decided that he wasn’t going to go into marriage without first making sure he had the right girl. He tells the story of how he happened to choose Rula Beck for his wife.
It seems that when he got home from his mission he began to date some girls. One in particular took his fancy and he dated her several times. But when things started to get serious, she made the comment that when they got married she would like him to buy her a roadster for her to drive around in and see her friends. This turned him off and they broke up.

Another girl with whom he got engaged asked him to dinner at her home. In the process of this meal the mother bragged a lot about her cooking and the father said that after they got married he would give them 40 acres to farm and help them to get started. This didn’t set too well as he had the feeling that they were trying to buy him for their daughter. This engagement soon broke off.

A girl friend soon introduced him to Rula at a dance and after a short courtship; he became serious and told her that he would be rather poor carrots because he didn’t have any money to start his married life on. They would have to start from scratch and in order to make a go of it, they would have to sacrifice and save money to buy the equipment he would need to pursue his farming occupation. The comment she made was, just remember this, I can take it if you can. This left the impression on him that she would be willing to sacrifice and he felt strongly that she was the one he was seeking to be his eternal companion.



Life History of Allan Oscar Johnson as remembered by Aldon, his son.

I should be able to remember a lot more than Ido, but will give what I can. Dad was born 20 April 1905 in Murray, Utah. Soon after his birth, his father homesteaded a farm in Shelley, Idaho. This was located about a mile and three quarters from town on the Taylor Road. (Note by CJC: It was told to me that Carl first homesteaded the farm of Hollis Harker on the southwest side of the butte, but traded for what is now the farm on the Taylor Road.) His father ordered a home from the Montgomery Ward catalog and they put it together on the property. It was a very nice home and is still standing and in use today. (Note from CJC: This home in 2006 is in use by Carl’s Granddaughter, Kristen Nelson and Maurice’s wife, Doris Kirkham Johnson.)

As a youth, dad had a dream. He dreamed that he was working on the farm and had a premonition that something was not right. He looked up and saw a very dark ominous cloud in the distance and he started running toward town. He arrived at the church just as the doors were being closed. He said that there were a lot of people there and that if felt very warm. After a time, when things began to feel better, they opened the doors. When dad looked out and the town was about all gone. He could see the other ward chapel across the tracks and it was still there and people were beginning to come out of it. This dream made a great impression on him that he must stay close to the Church at all times.

As young man he was called on a mission to Sweden, where his father had already filed three missions, one of them was during dad’s lifetime. He got as far as Denmark and could not get a vis to enter Sweden. As a result, he spent some time in Denmark doing missionary work. Finally the European mission president contacted him and suggested that he get a tourist visa to enter and that they would take care of the rest after he was there. This he did. He was serving somewhere in the Northern part of the country when the President contacted him that they could not get things changed, that there were two officers on their way to get him and that he should come to Stockholm immediately and report. He went once again to Denmark where he served for some months until he was reassigned to England where he finished his mission. At that time James E. Talmage was the President of the European mission and dad reported to his office. Dad, while waiting, was absorbed in some reading material and when President Talmage came out, he addressed him as Mr. Talmage. The President countered, Elder Johnson, I have joined the Church.

After his return home, he met and marry Rula Beck, my mother, from Rexburg, Idaho. She was born October 31, 1906. He told the story that soon after the marriage they attended a dance at Ricks College, I am not sure that it was Ricks College or Ricks Academy, but he was standing with a group of young people when mother came up and a young man who was there said, Allan, I would like you to meet Rula Beck. They looked at each other and the man said, Do you know one another? Dad said , Yes, we are married. I later met this man and he told me that he had introduced my parents just after they were married.

Soon after I was born, Dad got a farm in Lavaside, which is just out of Firth, Idaho. He just farmed that place for two years then he bought a 50 acre piece of ground just one mile east of Shelley, Idaho. He dug a hole for a basement, poured the forms for the walls and started to build a home. This is where I grew up; I just remember when Edythe was born. It was at home. Dad had a Model A Ford car but there was no electricity for the home yet. Dad removed a headlamp from the car and used some electric wire so the headlamp could be used for light for the birth. We used to haul drinking water in a toy wagon from Gutkey’s, a neighbor across the road. We hauled water for washing in a barrel on a wooden sledge from the canal about an eight of a mile away. I remember the man coming with a well drilling rig powered by a stationary steam engine, and we finally got running water into the kitchen. We never had indoor bath or toilet facilities until after we sold that farm and moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho.

About 1939, dad contracted tuberculosis. He became very sick. The doctors wanted him to go to a sanitarium, and the nearest one was in Ogden, Utah. He was there several months and didn’t seem to be getting any better and he was away from his family, so it was decided to bring him home. I drove the car to Ogden with mother to bring him home. At home he as kept in their bedroom in isolation and mother washed everything that came out of the room. I remember a time when he started coughing so that he could hardly get a breath. Mother called the Bishop and he came as fast as he could with another brother and they administered to him. He was able to rest and started to heal. It was a slow process. During this time we had another little home built next to ours for a hired man to assist with the farming. Also during this time dad rented another farm and the owner of the farm had just purchased a new Ford Ferguson tractor the year before. Dad bought the tractor from him and I used to do custom farming for our neighbors. Dad was a very good and successful farmer. He was in my estimation an artist when it came to irrigation.

During the time that dad was bedfast, he dreamed up a mechanical potato harvester. He sketched out his ideas and under his supervision, I built the machine. He had a blacksmith convert a horse drawn potato digger to a PTO tractor drawn digger. He had a push horse drawn potato digger which we dismantled and used the parts to build our new machine. I remember the first fall that we had it. We harvested all our potatoes and were topping our beets when a neighbor, Carl Anderson, came over. We had had some rain and he was having trouble getting the dirt through and the potatoes out so his hand pickers could get them. He wanted to try our machine. It was nearly 10 o’clock by the time we could get finished and hooked up and over there. It happened that his soil conditions were just right for our machine and about 11 o’clock, he hired a neighbor to come help haul the crop to the storage cellar. About 4’oclock he came to us and said, APlease stop now so we can get these in by midnight. The n ext year we put on some improvements and built another machine with these improvements and this neighbor bought the old original machine and used it for many years.

Our family consisted of myself, Carl Aldon Johnson, born 28 Jan 1928 in my grandfather’s home almost across the street from the second ward church building in Shelley, Bingham, Idaho. Miriam Louise Johnson was born 4 Dec 1929 in Lavaside, Blackfoot, Bingham, Idaho. Edythe Rula Johnson was born 29 Aug 1931 in Shelley, Bingham, Idaho. Earl Allan Johnson was born 9 September 1938 in the hospital in Idaho Falls, Bonneville, Idaho.

When Earl was born, the doctor who had been attending mother had to be out of town and left another doctor in charge of his patients. When it came time for the delivery, he was very drunk and as a result, Earl lost his hearing and has had many other health problems through out his life. Otherwise he is a very brilliant man and accomplished a great deal through his life. He learned to read lips and communicate very well.

In the fall of 1943, dad sold the farm in Shelley, and bought a farm made up of two 40 acre pieces of land in Idaho Falls, Idaho. We made the move in the middle of my sophomore year in high School. This farm was well developed, had a good home and out buildings. He served as Bishop in the Idaho Falls third ward for a time but had to be released for health reasons. He built a cinder block shop and that is where we repaired our own and neighborhood machinery and built potato harvesters, and various types of trailers for resale. I think that we built and sold 21 of our potato harvesters. In 1949, Dad sold his farm and as it was near enough to the city, he was able to sell it for home building lots. He also wanted to be nearer to the School for the Deaf and Blind, which was in Gooding, Gooding, Idaho. The farm in Gooding had an almost new home but no other buildings. Dad had to first build a milking barn and corrals and then a very nice larger shop. Dad’s health continued to decline. As a result of his earlier illness, allergies became a very large problem. He was very allergic to anything with wheat. If he walked across a wheat stubble field after harvest, his legs would break out in sores. Like I said, dad was a very good farmer, but due to health problems, he decided to go into something a bit different. He took on the dealership for Massey Harris farm equipment in 1956. He had looked into Allis Chalmers and was about to sign as a dealer for that company, as he had purchased an Allis Chalmers WD45 tractor. He did make some changes to put on a three-point hitch similar to the Ferguson 3 point. Then Massey Harris got wind of what he was doing and came to present their program. When they told him that their company had bought the Ferguson Company, 2 years earlier and that they were coming out with a line of tractors using the Ferguson hydraulic system, he signed with that company.

He kept the dealership on the farm until about 1960 when he went into a partnership with Fred Zitlau, who owned Zitlau Motors in Wendell, Gooding, Idaho. Fred was a dairy farmer out of Idaho Falls and had been hiring managers for his company, which sold GMC trucks, Plymouth and DeSoto cars and xome appliances. Dad moved his business into his facility, which had plenty of room. He got rid of the appliances quick. He soon found that the Auto Business was not for him and he made a success of the equipment business.

About 1976 he sold the business and retired. During the Second World War, he had served on the count y board of AAA, which was an agriculture government program. He served on the Bingham county Ration Board. Je joined the Farm Bureau Organization while he was living in Shelley and so when he moved to Idaho Falls, he was the first member of the Farm Bureau in Bonneville County. He served on the County and State boards of Farm bureau and was on the State Board when they started Farm Bureau Insurance Company. I also remember a time when Ezra Taft Benson was coming to speak to the Bonneville County Members. When he got to town, he was coming down with a very severe cold and could not attend, so he gave his written speech to dad to read in his stead. He stayed at our home and went to sleep and rested.

Dad was always active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He served in many positions in the Church including Ward and later, home teaching, bishop and Stake High Council. He and mother served a full time mission in the Tulsa Oklahoma mission where they spent most of their time in South Eastern Missouri.

Testimony of Allan O. Johnson in Meeting before leaving on mission with Rula.

I would like to let you know that I know that the Gospel is true. I know that God lives as also Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. I know that God the Father and Jesus Christ have bodies of flesh and bone. We have a saying, AAs man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become, through obedience to the principles of the Gospel. So we have a Heavenly Father waiting for us in heaven just as I have a father and mother waiting for me there. I would like to ask the blessings of the Lord to be with each and every one of you. I know we are all spirit children of our Heavenly Father, and that much good can come from your strength. I express appreciation for our Presidents of the Church. I have much respect for them and they have meant quite a bit to me. BY the way, I have made the effort to have my Line of Authority here and I would like to read that to you at this time.



Spencer W. Kimball, 29 Sep 1926 ordained me a High Priest

President Kimball was ordained an apostle by Heber J. Grant, 7 Oct 1923.

Heber J. Grant was ordained an apostle by George Q. Cannon on 16 Oct 1918

George Q Cannon was ordained an apostle by Brigham Young on 26 Au 1860

Brigham Young was ordained an apostle by the three witnesses, 14 Feb 1835.

The Three Witnesses were ordained by Prophet Joseph Smith

Who was ordained by Peter, James and John, who were called and ordained by our savior,Jesus Christ.


It doesn’t take very many names to trace our authority back to Jesus Christ. In as much as I was called as a Bishop and they follow that line for my authority. SO I would like to give you that line.

I was ordained a Bishop by Ezra Taft Benson, 18 May 1945

Ezra Taft Benson was ordained ban apostle by Heber J. Grant on 7 Oct 1923

Heber J. Grant was ordained an apostle by George Q. Cannon on 16 Oct 1918

George Q Cannon was ordained an apostle by Brigham Young on 26 Au 1860

Brigham Young was ordained an apostle by the three witnesses, 14 Feb 1835.

The Three Witnesses were ordained by Prophet Joseph Smith

Who was ordained by Peter, James and John, who were called and ordained by our savior, Jesus Christ.

I would like to bear this testimony and leave with you all the best wishes for your lives and especially I would like to ask a blessing on all. May the Lord bless you all. I do this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Info from Shelley 2nd Ward Records

#365 Allen Oscar (Deacon)

Born 1903, 28 Apr (20 Apr 1905?)

Blessed 2 July 1905

Bapt 5 July 1913 by J. E. Kelley

Conf 6 July 1913 by Soren Yorgensen

Teacher 13 Feb 1922 by Warren Mallory

Priest 13 Feb 1922 by Andrus Walquist

Left for mission on 2 Feb 1924 - Scandinavian

Elder 27 Jan 1924 by Wilford Christensen

Marr age 22 on 7 Apr 1927 – temple to Rula Beck



Carl Alden

Born 28 Jan 1928

Bapt 29 Feb 1936 by Grant Haolland

Conf 1 Mar 1936 by Allen Oscar Johnson

Deacon 19 May 1940 by Allen Oscar

Teacher 14 Feb 1943 by F. G. Kelly



Miriam Louise

Born 4 Dec 1929

Bapt 4 Dec 1937 by Marian Sorensen

Conf 5 Dec 1937 by Allen Oscar Johnson



Gerda Louise Wilcox

Born 26 Nov 1930 in Woodland CA

Blessed 2 Aug 1931 by Carl Oscar Johnson



Edythe Rula

Born 29 Aug 1931

Blessed 4 Oct 1931 by oliver Humphries

Bapt 4 Nov 1939 by Walter Bowler

Conf 5 Nov by Allen Johnson



Earl Allen

Born 9 Sep 1938 in Idaho Falls

Blessed 2 Oct 1938