I've been visiting my son in Houston over the holidays, and now have started the drive home to California. Since we were passing right through Henrietta, TX, I made a stop at Hope Cemetery to find the grave of my great-grandfather's uncle, William T. B. Johnson, and his wife, Callie (Dyer) Johnson. When my great-grandpa (Alfred J. Johnson) was just a boy of nine, his mother died. His father had died already on the way home from the Civil War. So now he and his two older brothers were orphaned. They were taken in by Callie Dyer, a neighbor, who cared for them for several months. Their uncle, W. T. B. Johnson, was notified; he had moved to California fifteen years earlier, but was now recently widowed himself. He came back to Arkansas, took custody of the boys, married Callie Dyer, and took them all back to California.
From there the story is a little convoluted. What my great-grandfather said (or so I was told) is that the uncle treated them harshly, and the oldest brother, who had already struck out on his own, came and "rescued" the other two boys, spiriting them away in the dead of night. Many years ago I met Uncle Williams's granddaughter, who reported that her grandfather had been known for his kindness and generosity, and that her grandmother had been heartbroken when these three boys she had cared for disappeared without a word. Who knows what the truth might have been?
At any rate, W. T. B. and Callie Johnson moved to Texas some years later, and both died and are buried in Henrietta. It was very moving to visit the graves of this couple who--whatever the real story may have been--were responsible for bringing my great-grandfather to California.
