William Johnson

I’m William Johnson, but you can call me Will. I was born in Michigan but I grew up on a farm in Shafter, California. My parents were Mennonite. The name Johnson may not sound like an ethnic Mennonite name, but the family name used to be Jantz before it got changed when my granddad was homesteading in Oklahoma. But that’s another story. 

My family was poor. Dad rented land to farm at various places around Shafter, but he never really succeeded. We moved often. My brothers and I helped with the farm work, so I worked hard. I dug potatoes and picked cotton and grapes (Thompson seedless). I went to high school in Shafter. I became a Christian at a community revival meeting when I was in high school. I was baptized in a farm reservoir at the age of 21 and joined the Shafter Mennonite Brethren Church. 

School was important for me and I tried to succeed in academics. After high school I went to Bakersfield Junior College for two years and then to the College of Agriculture of the University of California (now University of California, Davis). My major was dairy science. I remember one time when I didn’t have enough money for food, my mother emptied out the last two dollars from her cookie jar and sent them to me. That brought tears to my eyes. 

I got a job as a record keeper at a dairy near Bakersfield but I was not really content. I wanted something more. At one point, the president of Tabor College, A.E. Janzen, came and talked at the Shafter MB Church. That inspired me and from then on I wanted to be part of Tabor College. I think this was God’s call for my life. I went to Tabor for one year to take some teacher training and Bible classes. In 1943 I accepted a job teaching at Zoar Academy, a private school associated with the Zoar KMB Church in Inman, Kansas. (The K stands for Krimer or Crimean: it was a group of Mennonites that left the Molotschna colony in Ukraine and moved to Crimea.) Later, I taught science at Inman High School. 

In Inman I met a girl named Georgina Kornelsen. After a courtship of less than one year, we were married in 1944. We had almost 50 years together. 

Two years later, Georgina and I moved to Manhattan, Kansas, where I attended Kansas State College (as it was called at that time) for graduate work in chemistry. I received an M.S. degree in 1948. In 1947 I accepted a position to teach chemistry at Tabor College. Georgina and I joined the Gnadenau KMB Church and became involved in the Christian education program there. Our son Carey was born in 1951 and daughter Katherine Denise in 1952. 

I knew that I needed a more advanced degree, so I kept going back to Kansas State during summers and for a sabbatical year. Finally, in 1962 I received my Ph.D. degree in chemistry, one of the first Tabor professors to have a doctorate. I really enjoyed research in chemistry and thought it would be good to work on research projects with students. But I decided to invest my time in my teaching and in church work. Through the years I had several roles at Gnadenau, later Parkview, church: I led the decision to leave the K.M.B. conference and join the M.B. conference, maybe around 1954. I was director of Christian education, church moderator, church board member, secretary of the Southern District Conference, and Sunday school teacher. I felt that this was the work God called me to do. 

I loved Tabor. Over the years, 99 students graduated with a chemistry major. I retired from Tabor in 1982 after 35 years. I loved the church and continued church work in retirement. I started and edited a church newsletter called The Proclaimer. And I wrote a book about the history of Parkview Church called Faith and Courage. 

I always enjoyed traveling. I had a sabbatical year teaching at the University of Zambia in Lusaka, Zambia and had the opportunity to travel with Georgina to Ukraine and Russia, to South America, and to Israel and Egypt. I enjoyed going to sporting events at Tabor. I especially enjoyed visiting with other people, particularly with young people. God was gracious to me. Even though I had a serious heart attack at age 55, I lived and stayed active until I was 95 years old.