Hilbert Orlando Johnson

Blev 94 år.

Noteringar

Hilbert grew tobacco, milked cows and a variety of other odd jobs. He sold all the cows and retired around 1945-47. Hib never married and lived in the same farmhouse where he was born and also took care of his mother.

Do you know why the East Lemonweir Church has red carpet? Because Hibby's favorite color was red, the church needed new carpet and the Ladies Aide were discussing getting new carpet, and what color they would get, how they would raise the money for it, etc. Hibby told them that he would pay for the whole thing as long as the carpeting was red. Matilda Ormson was horrified by the idea of a red carpet, but she got voted down, everyone else thought that it was a good deal. So they decided to take Hibby up on his deal, and the church got a brand new red carpet. Hib mentioned that Matilda was stubborn and she refused to walk on the new carpet, at first she walked around it, but later on, she came around and walked on the carpeting.

Hibby was asked why he never got married and his answer to that was, "Because, I had to take care of Ma and I knew two women couldn't live in the same house. Ma wanted me to get married but, ma was perfect and I never found anyone who measured up to ma.” Well, he still ended up with two women when Amelia moved in, but he said that was different, they were sisters.

"I almost got married once but I didn't have a dance card." They used to have dances and in order to dance, you had to have a dance card, there was a young school teacher that he thought looked pretty fine, but he never got to know her, because he didn't have a dance card.

He dated a lot of women in his younger days. He used to talk about how this one girl used to live on top of a big hill, and he had to back the car all the way up the hill to pick her up. The hill was so steep that if he tried to drive up it he'd run out of gas, the gas tanks were in the front, all the gas would run to the back and wouldn't get to the carburetor. I guess the Nelson's had a bunch of girls and they all went to church at East Lemonweir, one day after church they all got in a group and cornered him by the church steps and told him to choose which one of them he was going to marry. He said he couldn't choose because they were all nice.

Hibby wanted to work for the Rail Road so he decied to take a test to become a stenographer. He had to learn all the States, including the capitals, zip codes, and all kinds of stuff for it, but a day or two before he was supposed to go take the exam he had an accident. They were sawing wood, and he cut a couple of fingers off. They were able to sew back one, but the doctor did a bum job, and it healed crooked, the other he lost. That changed everything for Hibby and he never did get to go take the test. It was a big disappointment, because he had studied very hard, for months and in a split second, everything changed. The way Hibby told it, he was as cool as a cucumber, when it happened...one minute they were sawing wood, and then he stopped, and started sifting through the sawdust, the person he was working with asked him what he was doing and he told them he was looking for his finger, at first they thought he was kidding.

Then one time, he and his cousin went to Milwaukee looking for jobs. They both got a job working as plumbers which only lasted for a couple weeks or so because didn't like plumbing, so he went back home and decided to farm instead.

Hibby used to brag that he had read every book in their school library and that when they closed the school, they sold all the books he should have bought them all.
He had a cousin that came to visit them one summer, and they partied all summer long. They went out practically every night; took out the girls, and never the same one, two nights in a row.

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