On this Day – Death of Tom J Johnston, Jr., July 11, 1973

My maternal grandfather, Tom J. Johnston, Jr. passed away on  11 July 1973.  He was only sixty years old. He died of cor pulmonale due to advanced pulmonary emphysema.[1] He had been a life-long smoker.

He was survived by his wife, Pansy L. Johnston, his daughter, Lela Nell Hork, his sisters, Beryl Russell and Mildred Bay, and six grandchildren.[2]

Tom had been a member of the Carpenter’s Union and worked at Diablo Valley Community College.

His funeral was held at Oak Park Hills Chapel in Walnut Creek and he was buried at Oakmont Memorial Cemetery in Lafayette.[3]

His was the first funeral I attended. I was 19. At the funeral home, the casket was open when we got there and I was surprised by how peaceful he looked. I had been a bit afraid of him because he always sounded so gruff when he spoke. Though, when he spoke to his dogs, he was very sweet.

Today, I thought I’d share a few photos of Tom and his dogs.





[1] State of California, Dept of Health Services, Certificate of Death, Contra Costa County, #73-087531, Tom J Johnston Jr, 1973.
[2] “Tom Johnston,” obituary, Contra Costa Times, Friday July 13, 1973, p 26.
[3] Memorial Card of Tom Johnston, Oak Park Hills Chapel, 13 July 1973, Gorrell Family Archives.

Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family

Comments

  1. Janice M. SellersJuly 14, 2017 at 3:07 PM

    Hi, Lisa! I've nominated you for the Blogger Recognition Award: http://www.ancestraldiscoveries.com/2017/07/blogger-recognition-award.html. Thank you for your interesting blogs, fellow Craig Siulinski alum!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisa S. GorrellJuly 14, 2017 at 6:49 PM

      Thank you! I'm amazed I'm still doing this and haven't run out of topics.

      Delete

Post a Comment

All comments on this blog will be previewed by the author to prevent spammers and unkind visitors to the site. The blog is open to other-than-just family members particularly those interested in family history and genealogy.

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Blogiversary & Happy 100th Blog Post!

Image
Today is a big milestone. This is the 100th blog post I have written and the 6th anniversary of the beginning of this blog. I began the blog on January 15, 2011, through a blog writing class I took at California Genealogical Society, taught by Craig Siulinski. It was something I wanted to do but wasn’t really sure what I would focus on. I finally settled on writing about my grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster’s family and this was my first post . In the beginning it was hard to get started. I learned from the Geneabloggers website, that there were blogging memes I could use and I have done that off and on, especially at the beginning. But I finally learned that what worked best was to write about my discoveries as I researched my grandmother’s family. So what have I written in six years? I discovered I have only written four posts specifically about my grandmother: “Mam-ma was a Tomboy” “Fearless Females – Day 12” “Mam-ma 1913-2013” “My Grandpar
Read more

John Coor of Copiah County Made an Agreement with Joel Hoggatt

Image
This week at RootsTech 2024, FamilySearch announced a new feature that an every-word search was available for U.S. deeds and probates. It is still in the trial mode and can be found at https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/ . This is the search screen. It clearly states it is for US land and probate records and Mexico notary records. You can do a keyword search or if you click on the “more options” you can add a name. My Find I immediately gave it a try and searched first for records of the COOR family using the keyword search. Up first came deeds from Wayne County, North Carolina.  At the top, you can filter using record year, record type, record place, and collection. For the past few days, I have mainly filtered by record place. I filtered down to Mississippi. You can even filter to the county. The first entry was a document I had not seen before. It was an 1826 agreement between John Coor and Joel Hoggatt to build a set of grist and sawmills. John Coor is my 4x-great-grandfath
Read more

Using the Attendees at Lela Ann (Loveless) Lancaster’s Funeral to Discover Residences

Image
Lela Ann Lancaster, my maternal great-grandmother, died on 17 May 1951. [1] She had died in Wichita Falls, Texas, at the state hospital. The doctor’s handwriting is nearly illegible so the cause of death is difficult to determine. She was conflicted with Parkinson’s Disease which probably contributed to her death. Her funeral was three days later. [2] Lela Ann (left) with Warren, daughter Pansy, granddaughter Lela Nell, and son Wayne, c. 1935 Obituary Tells Story of Life Two obituaries were published on the same day in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune on two different pages. One gave information about her life and the funeral, and the other was about who attended her funeral. The transcription of the first is here: "Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster"    Funeral services for Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster, 55, who died at 4:30 a.m. Thursday at a Wichita Falls Hospital, were at 3 p.m. Sunday at the First Baptist Church with the Rev. Felix Gresham and the Rev. Ernest Rippetoe officiating
Read more