CATRON, JANE ELLEN HORSELEY JOHNSON

by Frances Blackburn

Entry F69 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

Jane Ellen Hoorsely Johnson

She was called Jennie, this tall, fair, brown-
haired lady, and was the sixth child of nine.

About 1879 or 1880 her parents, Matthew
and Ellen Carling Johnson, their five daugh-
ters and baby Charlie arrived in London,
Ontaio, from their home in Humanby,
Yorkshire, England. The name of the vessel
in which they traveled to America is un-
known, but after two years they traveled to
Pittsburgh, Pa., where they stayed for some
time, then went west to Nebraska where there
was newly opened land for homesteaders.

Three older brothers, George, Fred and
Thomas, came later from England.

The cow's udder dragged in the sticky mud
as the wagon, oxen draw, labored through the
main street of Lincoln, Nebraska. The family
traveled to Ogallala, Nebraska, where Mat-
thew filed on a piece of property south of
Ogallala, not far from Sterling, Colorado. It
was here that the children grew to adulthood,
and it is here on this homestead that
Matthew suffered a scratch on his hand from
barbed wire. It became infected and blood
poisoning developed. Louise Estergreen in
Tacoma, Wash., has a letter which describes
how he had to soak his hand in carbolic acid
an hour at a time. This infection became the
reason for the sale of the ranch.

Jennie became a school teacher and taught
school in Elsie, Nebraska, and other towns.
Among her students was Ode Black.

In 1893 she married Edmun Enoch Catron
and had six children.

She served as County Superintendent of
Schools in Hooker County in 1913.