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BOB'S ANCESTORS	pre-1920	NEXT
Bob's Aunt Theresa is at left - who married Magnus(right) and had 2 daughters, Frances and Lillian	BOB'S ANCESTORS & RELATIVES Robert's family moved to California in 1922 after Bob's dad was offered a job by his aunt's husband. Bob found out over the years how this occured: "My father's mother's sister, Teresa Anderson obtained a position with a wealthy Chicago family and about 1900, that family, decided to move to Pasadena, California, moved their household servants, including Aunt Teresa into their new Pasadena home. "Teresa soon met and married Bengt Magnus Sebelius,who had been a teamster driving 20 mule teams from the north to Los Angeles, but had recently eatablished a teamster business in LA and was succeeding in a partnership with his brothers. Magnus and Teresa had 2 children, Frances and Lillian. Thorwald's aunt Teresa corresponded with him and other relatives in Ironwood. Magnus & Theresa's home in LA Bob described some of his research into this matter: "About the year 2000 I interviewed My father's cousin, Frances Ericsson, and asked her why her mother left Ironwood, Michigan and came to Los Angeles. Frances told me that her mother got employment as a servant in the household of a wealthy family in Chicago, and when the family decided to move to Pasadena, CA. They chose to bring the servants along. "On April 28, 2010, my cousin Midge, reviewing what Frances said pointed out that the records of the Salem Lutheran Church in Ironwood show that Frances' mother left Ironwood with a Rev. Douren and his sick wife to care for the wife and traveled directly to California in 1899. Several years ago I read in magazines that Joe Kennedy and his son, John had mistresses, Gloria and Marilyn. Gloria's autobiography tells about her relations with her aunt-in-law Inga. My father explained to me about his relations with his aunt, uncle and cousin." After Theresa passed away sometime in the 20s of breast cancer, Magnus married Inga, who was Gloria Swanson's aunt.... story is somewhere in Bob's timeline, but shows we are slightly connected to the Kennedys via one of their mistresses.
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Bob Judie, Bob's mom, probably stopped teaching school in Ironwood this year. She is in the back of the room in this picture.	Bob is born in Ironwood MI to parents Judith and Erwin Thorwald (Thorw pronounced "Turv" as he is referred by his wife Judie) Johnson. Thor was born "Michael Thorwald", but didn't like to be teased with his initials, "M.T." which sounded like empty, so he changed Michael to Erwin. The family resided in a house on Suffolk Street in Ironwood this year. Thor Johnson, Bob's dad in uniform
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Bob & Judie Bob and Marian, circa 1944	The family continued living on Suffolk Street in Ironwood. Bob's younger sister was born this year. He explained: "My sister, Marian Ruth Johnson was born November 25 1921 in Ironwood Michigan. Her father, Michael Thorwald Johnson (Turv) was a mine hoist operator. Her mother, Judith Hedwig Peterson (Judie) was an elementary schoolteacher. That post-war depression year, Thorwald became unemployed and was offered employment by his uncle Magnus Sebelius in Los Angeles California, so the family moved to Los Angeles. "Thereafter, Judie was a stay-at-home mom during our childhood. Magnus, who began as a 20 mule teamster, was in the dump truck business, and soon Turv saved enough money to buy his own truck and started his own business and was fairly successful until the 1929 economic crash, and was forced into bankruptcy. "Turv was a talented athlete. In Ironwood he competed in Ski Jumping and was once a player on a farm club of the Chicago Cubs. He was a juggler of many balls and when asked to, would walk on his hands with feet dangling overhead around our lawn. He was our inspiration. He was working for the Bethlehem Steel Company as a steel ingot "chipper" to support the family, a physically demanding job when he damaged his spine, making any work impossible. "This put his family on County Relief, and subsisting on a small allowance for rent and utility bills including a weekly box of staple groceries. He made a slow physical recovery. During this period, Judie worked at sales clerking and housekeeping jobs. The family living standard gradually improved from a very low level, first as Roosevelt's make-work programs got Turv jobs, and then as his Steam Engineer’s License and WW II got him a crane operating job in the shipyards. "He bought the house we had been renting before us kids graduated from high school. I had been working at insignificant jobs the year before Marian graduated when she immediately got a job as a telephone operator and was soon driving her own 1931 Model A Ford, all while I was still burning shoe leather looking for my first job in which I could afford my first car. Marian was working a split shift with her job, giving her 4 hours free in the middle of her day. "The spare time gave her an opportunity to attend a fashion modeling school, and soon she was earning money as a model while still doing her telephone job. Her schoolmate, Florence Lundeen, briefly got her a job dancing at the Paramount Theater in a chorus-girl line. I was impressed by the boy friend’s she brought to our parents' house. Her social life was oriented around her riding her surfboard at Malaga Cove every weekend. Because she was tall, her friends were taller, approaching gigantic, and she was proud to be associated with the "Tip-Toppers Club". "She met Francis Orville Rupp while once bowling with these friends. She took our family to the bowling alley one Saturday afternoon to show that Francis could bowl 100 points higher than Turv. Francis had a good job at Lockheed so soon they were married and were renting their own apartment. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Francis immediately volunteered for service in the Navy and Marian, pregnant, followed him around the country during his state-side training. "When he was shipped overseas, Marian and her baby, Janet, lived in Turv's house, and she and Judie got jobs working as "Rosie-the-Riveters" at North American Aviation. When I was on Okinawa, I got word in a letter from home that Francis was also there, so I hitched a ride over to his camp (He was an Aviation Metal Smith, First Class) He was living with his shipmates in a pyramidal tent that had a wooden floor, I was quite surprised when he lifted up a well-concealed trapdoor in the floor, revealing a vast supply of hard liquor neatly stowed, then closed it. He explained that he serviced aircraft ferried to the island from the states, that these planes had empty ammo compartments, which made possible a conspiracy with the pilots for him to black market, on shares, smuggled bottles, which was a dear and rare commodity among us invading military. "After the war, Francis went into the grocery store business and built their house in the San Fernando Valley, where Joanne was born in 1945, brother Richard about 1950. "Francis had been football player at Taft CA high school, an oil well community. I met one of his brothers, Kermit and visited his sister in Ventucopa, where I went rabbit shooting with Francis. He, armed with a pistol and me, with a 22 rifle. We startled a cottontail and in my confusion, Francis got it with one pistol shot. "He had a boat with an outboard motor on a trailer and once we launched it in the surf to go fishing, starting the motor when we got the boat beyond the breakers. Unfortunately the motor was loosely clamped to the stern and the motor kicked itself overboard. Later, Francis worked several years with a Frito route extending from Simi Valley to Pismo Beach. "Then he built, developed and sold an 8-cash-register supermarket in Goleta, after which he operated the food concession at the Santa Barbara Municipal Golf Course. Marian's son Richard was a Navy Sea Bee, serving in the Viet Nam War. Francis had a fenced acre where, to supplement income, he had 200 rabbit hutches, spending his spare time feeding, butchering and marketing them. "At the same time, Marian raised 50 chickens and 5 hogs. One day after the hogs learned how to catch the chickens, our families had a chicken slaughtering session. Another day, Francis erected a 10 foot high timber tripod over a 3-foot deep pit in which he had built a fire, and rigged a 50 gallon steel drum full of water boiling to de-hair a hog. At the top of the tripod was a pulley and a rope. We shot the hog, hoisted it by the feet to the top of the tripod, and immersed it in the boiling water. 3 of us were pulling on the rope, I held on but the other two let go to pull the hog onto an adjacent wood pallet for scraping hair. And the weight of the hog pulled me to the top of the tripod, almost catching fingers in the pulley and I dropped with my feet into the steaming fire pit, instantly withdrawing them as I did a back somersault to get as far away from the scene as possible. "Marian was known to her neighbors as the pig lady, to whom they phoned complaints when her pigs nosed their way under the wire fence and were feeding on the petunias. Whereupon she would come out and valiantly prod her pets back into the yard. Francis soon learned to crimp rings in those noses."
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	The family resided on Suffolk Street in Ironwood at the start of the year. Bob had heard the following story on how he wound up in California this year: "My father and mother, Thorwald and Judith had 2 children in Ironwood Michigan and when my father lost his job as a mine hoist operator in 1922, he had been corresponding with his Aunt Teresa in LA and Magnus offered Thorwald a truckdriving job, so our family also moved to LA. "Shortly after that Aunt Teresa died of a breast cancer, and Magnus married Ingeborg. Inga's sister was married to the brother of the mother of Gloria Swanson. About 1914 Gloria lived briefly with her Aunt-in-law, Inga (and wrote in her biography that Inga taught her to smoke and helped Gloria to get started in the Hollywood Film Industry). "Joseph Kennedy, partner in the Schenley alcohol business, and friend of FDR, ambassador to the Court of Saint James, was also a film magnate, and on his frequent transatlantic voyages on the Queen Mary, was accompanied by Gloria, who is said to have been Joe's mistress. Joe was the father of John F. Kennedy, the President of the USA, whose mistress is said to have been Marilyn Monroe, to whom I am thus related!" Bob believed his family moved to Maywood CA near the RR tracks (which are now across the LA River).
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	Bob believed his family moved to 420 E 59TH PLACE WEST OF AVALON BLVD in LOS ANGELES and stayed there thru 1924. SOUTH PARK Los Angeles still has an area filled with palm trees called South Park
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Bob, Judie & Marian Bob & Marian Marian & Bob	Bob remembered in 2017: In 1924, when uncle Hugo was discharged from the Army, he came to LA and lived with us. Because he still had his Army uniform, he got a job as a deputy sherriff and was stationed in Needles CA at the Colorado River bridge to turn back all arriving migratory farm workers who could not show that they had money.
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Magnus Sebelius and his Autocar. Bob is little boy near front of truck Bob's family moved here, 2112 ORCHARD AVE. LOS ANGELES, and lived here into 1926.	Bob recalled: "The Sebelius brothers, Magnus and Gustave operated a dump-truck service based in the backyard of their houses at 2112 South Orchard Avenue in Los Angeles, California. It was 1925 when my memories of the Autocar Dumptruck (as a 5-year old) began. My father, Thorwald Johnson, was employed as a truckdriver by his uncle Magnus and rented one of Magnus' houses there. The trucks were kept in an open shed in our backyard. I have come to believe that these trucks were cheaply available as surplus government property after the 1918 Armistice. "The trucks were painted gray,with solid rubber tires.The engine was under the right side of the drivers upholstered bench, a one cylinder flywheel engine, once started by hand cranking,ran at an RPM determined by a centrifugal governor mechanism controlled as the driver's throttling device. The economy of this engine was its capability of coasting the flywheel without fuel or the resistance of a compression cycle until the governor detected frictional slow-down (remember the interrupted rhythm of the song, "Cement Mixer, Putsy-Putsy"), then allowing the engine fuel and a few compression strokes to restore energy to the flywheel. One truck had a clutch connecting to the rear wheels by a chain drive. There was a power take-off to an oil pump that was piped to a cylinder that tipped the dump-box. A very unique feature was a warning whistle powered by the exhaust stroke cycle. My father told us about how the worn-smooth tread of the solid rubber tires had very little traction on wet asphalt pavements and how once his truck spun downhill into a streetlight pole, where a pedestrian on the sidewalk advised him to "Haul-ass away before the cops come". That night , my father painted his truck red. The top speed of this rig was about 25 MPH.
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Marian, Judie, Bob about this time	About 1926, Thorwald bought his own Autocar Dumptruck and specialized in obtaining topsoil by leveling city lots and selling it at many Japanese-owned plant nursuries around LA. A one-man operation, he hand loaded the dirt and sold it for two dollars a cubic yard. Borrowing money for a new Moreland Dumptruck and later, repairs thereto forced him into bankruptcy in 1931 and that truck was repossessed by the lender. Bob believed the family moved this year to 7917 AVALON BLVD, LOS ANGELES, and stayed for at least a year.
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Looks like Judie in upper left on visit to a studio	Bob & his family continued living at 7917 AVALON BLVD, LOS ANGELES. He probably started 2nd grade in the fall of this year.
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	Bob explained beach trips around what is now called Balboa Beach: "When our family went camping over the weekend at the beach near the mouth of the Santa Ana River, it was a spontaneous affair agreed upon by neighbors and relatives with families like ours. We would overload our touring cars (Our Model "T" Ford had fake doors that required the passengers to climb over them) and after a 2 hour drive, park on the sandy shoulder of the beach highway, spread blankets on the sand and unload enough firewood to have a late into the night weeny and marshmallow roast interrupted by frequent dips in the surf, sand castle construction and explorations yielding sea shells to show off in Monday's classroom. "Around the river mouth inland, under the highway bridge at low tide that foggy morning we saw a man digging for clams, so we got our little pails and shovels and learned soon how to locate a clam, that the clams were wary of us predators and retreated deep in their wet sand holes if not approached with stealth. We each soon had our pails of razor clams to show off at our still sleepy campsite where my mother explained her suspicion that the river water was contaminated and the month of August did not have an "R" in it."
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Marian, ?, ?, Bob	Bob believed the family moved to 613 E 79TH ST, LOS ANGELES during the year, but in the same year moved to 1132 E 91ST ST. in WATTS.
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