VONOLA LEVERE JOHNSON
1909-1978
(Contributed by Jackie Crawford)

Vonola Levere Johnson was the second of two daughters born on May 17,
1909 to William Harrod Johnson and Pearl May Foss in Prairie Township,
Crawford County, Illinois. The attending physician at her birth was S. 
A. Smith. William worked as an oil field tool dresser, moving his 
family frequently as his work took him from oil field to oil field. 
Perhaps as a result, Von grew up tough and self-reliant. She appears to 
have doted on her older sister, Vivian Johnson (nicknamed Nicky) who 
was born August 18, 1906. 

According to her daughter, when Von was a junior in high school she put 
a red polka dot dress on layaway for her junior prom. She saved her 
money to buy pumps to go with it. She never got to go because her 
family needed the money for food or because Nick got sick and needed 
medicine. 

Money must have been a lifelong shortage. Von never finished high 
school because her family needed money. She quit school and went to 
work for a baking powder company. The company paid her to go around to 
various parts of the state and teach women to use their product. She 
taught women to make pie crusts and biscuits. 

When Von was about seventeen she met Homer Crawford in Winfield, 
Kansas,(possibly near where her father was working drilling oil). She 
and her sister Nicky worked as waitresses at the Naylor Hotel in 
Winfield. Von married Homer on June 7, 1921 in Ballinger, Runnels 
County, Texas. They returned to Winfield to live, working and running 
Crawford's service station. In 1933 they bought a farm just outside of 
Winfield. There they stayed to raise chickens, pigs, 3 head of beef 
cattle and their two children: a boy, Jack, born in 1928, and a girl, 
Jackie, born in 1929. In the 1940's Vonola (Von) worked at a music 
store in Winfield, Kansas. 

Jackie remembers that she and her brother would pretend in the kitchen
of their home, singing about "Von Crawford's little biscuits" that they
remember being so good. Von Crawford was always very proud of her 
strength. She would demonstrate to me, her granddaughter, how she could 
place a heavy book on her abdomen and make it bounce into the air.
Her daughter remembers her doing one-armed pushups. 

At the time of her death Von was 69 years, 5 months and 20 days old. 
She was buried next to her husband at Lawnhaven Memorial Gardens in San
Angelo, Texas. 
-- 
Jackie Crawford
jjcrawf@aol.com

Johnson Foss Smith Crawford
=
Crawford-IL KS Runnels-TX