MORTON JOHNSON

Jul 24, 1954

Morton (Mott) Johnson patriarch of the Farmersville-Solitude community where he had spent his entire long life, died at 3:50 o'clock this morning at St. Mary's Hospital in Evansville.

The retired farmer and blacksmith was 91 years old last January 4.  He had retained to a remarkable degree his mental and physical faculties dispite his advanced years and his mind was a storehouse of early South Posey county history.

On July 15 Mr. Johnson fell and fractured his left hip at his home south of Solitude where he and his sister, Mrs. Jane Walls had resided for the last 25 years.

Since last Saturday he had been under an oxygen tent in the Evansville hospital following the development of pneumonia that resulted in his death. The body is at the Weisinger Funeral Home in Mt. Vernon and will remain there through the funeral service set for 2 p.m. Monday in the Weisinger chapel.  Burial will be in the Moore's cemetery north of Farmersville alongside the grave of his wife, Amy Moore Johnson, who died in 1911.

Friends may call at the Weisinger chapel beginning this evening.

Surviving are two sons, Loren F. Johnson, Posey county auditor and chairman of the Posey county Democratic Central Committee, and Elwood Johnson a veteran employee of Delco-Remy  Corp, at Anderson, Ind; two grandson, Albert Morton Johnson, U. S. Navy, Oxnard, Calif, and Norman Jay Johnson, Anderson, and the sister, Mrs. Walls.

The deceased was a son of Nathan Johnson and Eliza Allyn Johnson and was born east of Farmersville.  For a number of years he was associated with a brother, Pleeman Johnson, in operation of a blacksmith shop at Solitude.  He was an ardent Democrat and served as a road supervisor at the time the office was elective.

He was the oldest member in age of Mt. Vernon lodge, no. 49, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and was a charter member of Grafton-Savah lodge of the fraternity.

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Originally submitted by Betty Sellers