Alphonse died June 5, 2009 at his daughter’s home in Cannon Falls. He celebrated his 103rd birthday with family on Tuesday, June 2.
Alphonse was born June 2, 1906 in Spruce Hill Township to Swedish immigrants Albert and Caroline (Nordstrom) Johnson. He was the fourth of eight children. He attended District 66 School in Spruce Hill for eight years. He attended Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis for a time and also radio repair school in Chicago. His first job, at age 14, was picking potatoes near Belle River for 8 cents a bushel. With his first earnings, he bought a 7-jewel Elgin watch. As a young man he worked on the family farm, worked on threshing crews, land clearing/grubbing, road building – whatever work could be found during the difficult Depression years.
On April 12, 1941, he married Verna Hushagen. They lived in Longview and Seattle, WA from 1941-1943. During WWII, Alphonse worked in the Seattle shipyards helping build battleships. They returned to Minnesota in 1943 and Alphonse resumed his portable feed-grinding business, before returning to farming in Spruce Hill Township, where he lived until last fall.
Alphonse always had a zest for living and keen appreciation of nature and all God’s creation. Since 1975 he planted and nurtured more than 10,000 evergreen trees in former pasture and field areas of his farm. Traveling was a favorite pastime, spending winters in California or Florida for 40 years, plus many other trips. In 1999 he traveled to Sweden to the area where his grandparents and parents emigrated from and met many Swedish relatives.
He is survived and will be greatly missed by three children, Sharon (Dick) Bjerkaas of Rochester, Stuart of Ormond Beach, FL and Anita (Steve) Dabelow of Cannon Falls; six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his wife.
With Alphonse’s passing, the community loses a local historian, one of the last people who remembered well the history of life back to the early 1900s.
Arrangements are by Lind Family Funeral Service with chapels in Miltona and Parkers Prairie; www.lindfamilyfuneralservice.com.