history
2013
Senior Stars: Jim Johns
No, I am not telling tales out of school. “Se-
nior Stars” is back for this edition of Vernonia’s Voice.
Well, maybe I will be telling tales out of school. This
edition of Senior Stars features a former Vernonia
school teacher who happened to be married to one as
well. As far as they are concerned, school has been out
since 1985.
Did you know that Jim Johns was born here
in Vernonia? Things were quite different then, back in
1927.
Jim’s father was Scotty Johns, nicknamed
“Scotty” since he was born in Scotland in 1896. Scotty
spent four years in the Scottish Army and was also a
hard working coal miner. Before WWI Scotty’s broth-
er Robert joined the Canadian Navy. Jim’s dad decided
to leave his native land and joined up with Robert in
Vancouver, B.C.
On the maternal side, Jim’s mother Katherine
hailed from DeRidder, Louisianna and made her way
here to Vernonia because of the mill where her brother
worked.
Jim’s parents met here in Vernonia at Koster
Logging Camp where she was a “flunky” (or waitress)
in the logging camps.
Jim has a sister MaryAnn and they started
school at Pleasant Hill on Timber Road. They moved
to Koster Logging Camp in 1932. The school, Jim re-
members, had three rooms: grades 1, 2 and 3; grades 4,
5 and 6; and grades 7 and 8. When Jim was in 3 rd grade
they moved to Hines, near Burns, in eastern Oregon.
After three months they returned to Vernonia to work at
Koster Products.
Jim’s mother Katherine worked at a saw mill
here in Vernonia during WWII. Both she and Scotty
also worked at a shipyard in Portland.
Unfortunately, like many of others in the in-
dustry, Scotty didn’t get through logging unscathed.
He was the victim of a logging accident when a log
rolled on him on the rollaway. Scotty spent eighteen
long months recuperating. Initially he went to St. Vin-
cent’s Hospital. Jim remembers his father in a hospital
bed in the hallway and his mother being told to “...go
sit with him or he might not survive.” She did and he
did. Back in those days, says Jim, emergency helicop-
ters were a thing of the future.
Jim graduated in 1945. Well, truth be told, Jim
did not actually graduate with his class. Christmas of
his senior year he valiantly decided to serve his coun-
try, enlisted in the Navy and was sent to San Diego.
After his boot camp induction, off Jim went to
another warm but not so inviting climate ...the Philip-
pines, where he was assigned to Minesweeper #393.
For some that job invokes fear—actually sweeping
Japanese waters for mines—the kind that can blow you
up! Jim describes how the mines, after they had cut the
Jim Johns when he served in the US Navy, 1945-46.
cables, would bob to the surface where they would be
blown up by rifle fire.
Does anyone recall the name Max Willis? Jim
remembers that the two of them went into the service
together, Max going to Officer Training School.
Having survived WW II, after two years Jim
was discharged from the Navy. He returned to attend
Pacific University, where he majored in business and
girls, on the G.I. Bill, graduating after four years.
Jim came back to Vernonia, where there was
a shortage of male teachers, and began teaching grade
school. He loved his job and especially enjoyed teach-
ing 7 th and 8 th grade. He taught geography and history,
civics and government. Unlike the Jim of high school
days, he actually enjoyed cracking the books and learn-
ing, attending summer school at Portland State to get
The Good Old Days
By Bob New
Call
it
history,
trivia,
reminiscence. Not news to most but
perhaps of interest to several. The
Vernonia “mile bridge.” Interesting
to some (me) and boring or of little
consequence to others.
Perhaps not a mile in either case;
I have not measured the distance from
city limits or center of town to either of
the Nehalem River bridges on either side
of Vernonia. Both bridges, as I knew
them when living in Vernonia, have been
replaced.
Take the one at Riverview. Think
of that little road that went straight to the
river, from O-A Hill. On the Vernonia
town side of the original bridge, there
was a grocery store, Zeiner’s Grocery.
The original and continuing exit from
that road takes you to parking at Vernonia
Lake, the former Oregon-American Mill
Pond and site of the log dump there.
I cannot tell you what year
the “powers that be” (Oregon State
Department of Highways?) built a new
bridge there. Driving through this little
stretch of road you can see where they
angled the road slightly, bypassing the
Zeiner’s Grocery Store, and built the
new bridge a few feet downstream
from the original bridge. I do think
Zeiner’s Grocery suffered financially
from the slight change that bypassed
their store.
For me, it seems that almost
every corner or street in Vernonia
has some history, event or mishap
associated with it. And those two
bridges are no exception.
One little kid was drowned in
the millpond. And Mr. Hahmeyer lost
his life in an industrial accident in the
Oregon-American Mill’s concrete
sawdust house that still stands
today. My teacher’s husband had a
motorcycle accident on the town side
of that Riverview Bridge. Two men
were burned to death when they came
off that bridge, missed the turn and
hit the Bill Heath gas station on the
7
certified for teaching elementary school.
After teaching for thirty-four years Jim retired
in 1984. Aside from teaching his subjects, Jim also
took to the basketball court and fast lane of the track,
coaching both sports in 1954 and 1955.
We need to ask a member of his team, Bill
Howard, if there is any truth to Jim’s claim that Jim
was good at motivating his teams to win the county
championship. And also about Jim’s fond memo-
ries of how he enjoyed taking his sports boys on
camping trips to Eastern Oregon. Nostalgic, fun
days; Jim reminisces.
No strangers to work, Jim and his school teach-
er bride Ginger had a farm of thirty acres seven
miles toward Mist where they raised beef cattle and
had horses, the latter being Ginger’s love.
Jim talked of his 1028 Model A that he proudly
purchased for, wow!, a whopping $127 on Union
Avenue.
He remembers one night going to two dances,
both on the same night mind you, one here in Ver-
nonia and one in Natal. Not sure why that memory
also triggers memories of Police Chief Ace Lolly
and his three daughters Kathleen, Barbara and
Marge, but at any rate, Jim says everyone had nice
things to say about that whole family.
He also remembers riding the milk truck
around Vernonia with Gwin Graves and remembers
the former Pebble Creek Dairy, located where my
home is now situated.
Jim and Ginger, who retired from teaching in
1985, have a son Tim who is a building contractor.
They have two grandchildren-a granddaughter in
Scappoose and a grandson in North Dakota-as well
as five great grandkids, aged one to fourteen.
The past two years Jim and Ginger have tak-
en their motor home to Arizona and Cabo in Mexico.
They have gone snowmobiling, on horseback trips, to
Eastern Oregon, gone deer, elk and bear hunting and
enjoyed fishing trips. Now they would rather go by
train or fly...perhaps to Monument Valley, Arizona.
Jim and Ginger have spent the last eleven years
in their beautiful home their son built. At this stage in
their life Jim says he has done many fun, exciting and
memorable things, but now, in his opinion, “There’s no
place like home.”
Thanks to Jim Johns for sharing this enjoyable
story with Senior Stars and with our Vernonia’s Voice
readers.
Riverview side.
And the “Mile Bridge” on the
southwest side of Vernonia? Now rebuilt
and relocated slightly. There used to be
a sharp turn on the Buxton side of the
bridge. Bill Olnger, making that turn
while going to a high school sports event
out of town, had a wheel come off his
car and wound up off the road there.
Two of my classmates, Phyllis Belongia
and Eileen Uhlin, lived in the first two
houses there. And a few feet farther
on there was another sharp turn, just
before Sunnyside Service. Two different
people I know turned automobiles over
on that curve. And alongside the curve
was a house where kids were playing
with a gun and an 8-year-old boy shot
and killed his younger sibling. And the
residence at Sunnyside Service? I was
told when first built it was a sawmill.
The Roediger Family lived there when I
was a kid.
VERNONIA
For fast
cash!
010412
By Karen Miller
may16
E
C
I
V
SER PAIR
& RE
Warranty on all parts and labor
Now offering
2 and 4 wheel
alignments
2245 Baseline St., Cornelius
(Across from Fred Meyer)
503-530-8119
State Licensed PB-0388
Open
everyday
at 9 a.m.
58605 NEHALEM HWY. S.
Next to Storage, Too
503/429/7972
