John Edward Johnson came to Marshfield following his marriage to Eva Estelle Knickerbocker in Kaukauna, WI in 1907. He's listed in the 1908 City Directory and the 1910 Census as a Produce Buyer for H. Ebbe & Co., a business managed by his older brother Albert. We have a contract drawn between Hans Ebbe of Waupaca and John and Albert Johnson in 1918 outlining the partnership in which the Ebbe was a 40% partner and the Johnson Bothers were 30% partners.

 According to Catherine Johnson Southworth, John's niece and longtime Ebbe Company secretary John was more of the idea man while his brother Albert was more the day-to-day person. Albert did the hiring and firing of the men, scheduling and bookkeeping. John dealt more with the customers and salesmen. The mixture of the two seems to have been very effective in developing a smooth running, yet progressive business. It was John's idea to expand the company to include a lumber company. Since the company had sold a line of building materials from it's beginning, it seems like a logical progression. The lumber yard of the Ebbe Company was developed during the depression. During that time, John also bought and sold properties, both residential and commercial. John built several smaller, middle class homes along west 4th Street in Marshfield. Among his investments were several buildings in Marshfield which he bought from businessmen who were in financial trouble because of the depression. One of the purchases was Noll Implement and Noll Hardware store. The implement building was converted into the Ebbe Co. Lumber yard and he leased back the Noll store building to Frank Noll on a land contract allowing Noll to remain in business. He did this several times. When asked by a grandson about his purchases and why he sold them off he said "empty stores don't need coal"

There are many records of deeds, transactions and business dealings. One record is a tax return filed in 1926. It lists income of $36.00 from banks, $8.00 profit from the sale of stock and $12,162.41 as income from a partnership in the H. Ebbe & Co. It also lists a contribution of $100.00 to the Presbyterian Church. This indicates the health of the company.

John was born to Rasmus and Ana Jorgenson in Waupaca in 1881. He was the youngest of four boys and two girls; William, Theodore, Mary, Anne, and Albert. The first record we have is his marriage in 1907. However, stories told to his grandchildren had John working the wheat harvests of the Dakotas about 1900. He talked about being a fireman on a stream tractor, feeding bundles of wetted straw to the engine.

John graduated from "Stone School" in Waupaca about 1899 and a family story has it that he attended Lawrence Academy (or Lawrence College) in Appleton, WI for a time. No record of attendance has been found, but it has been said that he took a short course of some sort in business.

John married Eva Knickerbocker at the Brokaw Memorial M.E. Church in Kaukauna, WI, Oct 10, 1907. According to wedding book in the family, they were married by John Manning and the witnesses were E.A. Peterson and Lottie Knickerbocker. 

 Eva was born in Kaukauna in 1884. Eva's family line which traces back to the 17th century Dutch settlement in the Catskill Mountains of New York about whom Washington Irving wrote. According to Stella Johnson Davis (daughter) her grandmother Estelle Robinson Knickerbocker told her that she was descended from a Dr. Robinson who came over on the Mayflower. It has been established that the Robinson line descends from Pastor John Robinson who was the pastor of the Pilgrim Church in Leyden Holland. Pastor Robinson led the Pilgrims from England to Holland and organized the Mayflower expedition to Plymouth Colony. Pastor Robinson never joined the Massachusetts Colony as planned as he died in 1624 in Holland. His son, Isaac came to Plymouth in 1631. She is also descended from Edward Fuller, passenger on the Mayflower whose great grand daughter married the great grand son of John Robinson

John and Eva had two children, Estelle Marguerite (Stella) Johnson Davis and Herbert Cassius Johnson. Eva died of peritonitis on March 17, 1921 in Marshfield. A story told to the grandchildren was that she had been working at a church supper at the First Methodist Church and scalded her arm, which infected. However the cause of the peritonitis was a ruptured ovarian cyst. Eva was well known in Marshfield as having strong views on temperance and was a member of the WCTU.

According to Catherine Southworth, John's niece, the relationship between John and Eva was warm, loving and openly affectionate. She described Eva as a fun loving person, kind, gentle and loving and often envied her aunt and uncle's relationship. She also said that she thought that Stella and Herb were allowed more play and running around than they were.

According to Stella, her mother Eva enjoyed entertaining and had many friends. Stella told the story that they had a roomer, a couple who worked at the telegraph office. One day the woman came down in a short skirt and red silk stockings. After she left the house Eva called her neighbors to come and look at the young woman as she stood at the corner of 2nd and Cedar. Stella also told that they always had a "hired girl" a young woman who would have come off a farm and worked for a family until they could find other employment (or perhaps go to high school) Once such young woman was tending to Stella and Herb while John and Eva went to a movie at the old Adler Theater (or Opera House on 2nd Street). She was picked up by a boyfriend and went out. Being scared, Stella put sweaters on herself and Herb over their night clothes and walked the two blocks to the theater and sat on the steps under the lights. When John and Eva came out the movie, they discovered their children. When the young woman returned home later, she was greeted with her packed bags on the steps.

At the wake for Eva, Herb was sitting on John's lap and Herb asked where his mother was. Catherine says that she told Herb that his mother was in heaven. Herb said that he wanted to go to heaven too, so he could be with her.

After Eva died, John hired a series of housekeepers, one of these was Sue Sizer. According to Stella, Sue's husband was a conductor for the railroad and they lived across the street from John. John asked them to move into his house. Sue had a son about 1½ and was pregnant with a second child who was born shortly after they moved in. A year later, according to Stella, Sue again became pregnant and her "dad thought that was really too many 'kids', so they left." Another - childless couple moved in and kept house until John remarried. Stella remembers Sue as a greatly appreciated housekeeper.

Catherine also reports that after Eva's death, John dated many women in town including the city nurse and several teachers. According to Stella, a cousin of Eva's named Liva Knickerbocker had a high school friend, Aurel Denson. Liva had come to Marshfield and stayed at John and Eva's while she went through nurses training at St. Joseph's. Eva and John apparently not only gave her a place to live, but supported her education financially. It was through this connection that John knew of Ethel. According to Stella "he deliberately went to Mr. and Mrs. Denson and asked to be introduced to her, as he was lonesome, but not very interested in being invited to many parties to meet young women. He became acquainted with Ethel during the summer and she did say that she wouldn't marry him until she took a housekeeping and cooking course at Stevens Point, which she did. She came home by train several times during that year. They were married in June, the following summer."

John married Ethel on June 24, 1924. A newspaper account of the wedding states that they were married at her parents' home (Mr. & Mrs. R.E. Denson) on St. Joseph Ave at 9:00 a.m., by Rev. Oscar Lee Black of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. & Mrs. Frank Denson were the witnesses. It further reports that "they left the same day on a trip that would include Chicago, Detroit and Niagra Falls and points East." They had a daughter Lois Johnson Becker. Children of Herb and Stella always called Ethel "Aunt".

The relationship between John and Ethel was, according to Catherine, close and they were very respectful of each other. They shared a love of gardening and worked together on the elaborate garden and pond in their backyard. In remodeling the home a porch was added and there was an elaborate design in the tile floor. Apparently they worked on these kinds of projects together.

All of Ethel's actions were very precise. If she baked cookies, they were all the same size, when she canned peaches they were all arranged exactly and evenly in the jar. According to Stella, Ethel loved games like checkers and puzzles and cross word puzzles. She also played the piano and John enjoyed her playing. They would play checkers and dominos. Stella also said that Ethel did "handwork" and "there wasn't a towel or pillow case in our house that wasn't embroidered or had crocheted edging on it. She crocheted bedspreads and tablecloths, made Afghans and shawls." Ethel received her education at the Detroit Business University and Stevens Point Normal (now UW-SP) and taught in the public schools. She was very active in the women's organizations at the 1^st Presbyterian Church.

As a measure of John and Ethel's standing in the community, John Stauber (a local attorney and son of the Citizen's National Bank founder and president) told the story that when they visited the John Johnson's they were told to be on their best behavior because the Johnson's were "quality people."
The grandchildren remember Ethel as very quiet and somewhat formal. Ethel died of cancer June 2, 1962 and was buried in Hillside Cemetery in the Johnson family plot.

After Ethel's death, a niece and her husband moved in and kept house for two years, followed by another couple, the Garten's. Then John lived for a short time with his son, Herb. Sue Sizer came back to Marshfield to be with her ill sister and John contacted her and asked her to keep house for him after her sister died. Sue had worked as a clerk in a large department store in Milwaukee for years. Her husband had died many years before she returned to Marshfield. She was again brought to the Johnson house. John married Sue in 1966. According to Stella, John called her and told her he and Sue were getting married because they got along so well and that he felt it didn't looked good for two unmarried people to live together. He died just after their 4th wedding anniversary on April 17, 1970, He's buried in Hillside Cemetery in the family plot.

John and Ethel, along with Albert and Emma Johnson liked to travel, and took several long trips. They traveled in the late 20's and early 30's to Florida and the Dakotas. John took movies of these trips. One film showing Mount Rushmore with only 3 heads, and movies of parades and circuses in Marshfield and many pictures of his cottage on Pine Lake outside Park Falls. One picture shows him with about a 48 to 50 inch Muskie - he also liked fishing and fished both lake and streams.

No story of John would be complete without the story of his house. About 1912 he bought a house located at 3rd & Cherry from Dr. Schaefer who wanted to build a new home (a brick prairie style home still at that location) The house was a Victorian Italianate design built about 1885. It is similar in style to the Laird and Upham homes, but was "L" shaped. The house would not fit on the intended lot and so the "L" part was sawed off and moved somewhere. The main part of the house was moved to 110 S. Cedar. The front porch of the house was enclosed in the 30's to give John a place for indoor plants and a set of French doors were installed to keep the living room and hallway warm during the winter. In 1981 the house was to be torn down to make way for an expansion of the city library. A local realtor, George Rohmeyer, bought it and again moved the house to a four acre lot outside of town. It has since evolved into a bed and breakfast.

Another feature of the house was it 7 foot pond behind the home in which John, an avid gardener raised water lilies. The pond had a center island on which grew day lilies. The pond was enclosed by a fence with a rose arbor. The goldfish kept in the pond were wintered over at Hefko's Greenhouse.

Because of his love of gardening, John bought the old Lerverton place on Birch Road in the town of McMillian (homestead of "Buck" Lerverton, the longtime farm reporter on WSAU radio and TV). It was a place for him to retreat from his business and garden on a scale not possible in the city, it was also a place he loved to watch sunsets, smoke his cigars', fish the Eau Plaine River for trout and, later, reminisce and tell stories to his grandchildren. It was said that the back 40, planted with peas for many years, was one of the best pea fields in the area. John also had large strawberry and raspberry patches plus an extensive orchard of plum and apple trees. The farm was later sold to son Herber and became a summer home. After John rented (later sold) the farm to his son, Herb, he built a cottage on Pine Lake outside Phillips, WI. He spent many of his summers there fishing. It was on Pine Lake where he caught his prize Muskie.

John was best known as a shrewd businessman with investments in not only the H. Ebbe Co. but also with many pieces of real estate and stock market investments. Even after his retirement he could be found at his desk in the Ebbe Co. feed mill, reading the Wall Street Journal and smoking his cigar.