Ancient DNA and Me And Some Gun-Running Exes: Remembering My Uncle Dwight
Here's to you, Uncle Dwight, an American original.
My eldest uncle Dwight died at 82-years old recently.
To say I loved him would be a bit much. We had work to do, and being WASPs, we don’t share our emotions and certainly we don’t share it publicly and especially not with family. Maybe we ought to. But are we going to? Probably not. It was, all in all, rather rude of him to die before answering some of my questions but then again, I suppose all of us die.
The trick is living with dignity, purpose, resolve, and yes, even a bit of flair. The son of an admiral, Uncle Dwight won scholarships to college and was the first student to “winter over” in Antarctica. Officially he was studying fish and there’s indeed a small mountain named for my uncle down there with the penguins. Unofficially they were looking for minerals and fossil fuels. Shhh! You simply must read the obituary for his mentor — Professor Wohlschlag — and learn that they just don’t make ‘em like that these days.
Uncle Dwight passed away shortly before Christmas. The autopsy — finally complete — shows that he had massive heart attack and he died in his yard. He lived alone in Palo Alto.
To be sure, I’m less interested in how he died. We shared a love of genealogy, family research, DNA, sports cars, and LEGOs.
He was — well, let’s not speak too ill of the dead — difficult. But then again, so am I. Maybe it’s a family trait? Certainly we knew how to pick ‘em.
When I got divorced my uncle confided in me.
Well at least your ex-wife isn’t into gun running, he said.
Say what?
Sure enough.
Anyway, I thought I’d include for you our last two emails.
Here are some facts that should reset your misconceptions:
1. Grandad wrote his "autobiography" for me. I received it, read it, verified expanded it back about 8 generations. You are only seeing the tip of a 400 year American Epic. Everything he says is true and I have many photographs to go with it.
2. I was given the Johnson Family History by Rocla Baer Johnson. He started me off in 1947.
In 1971 about the time he took your father on his around the world trip, Rocla gave me all his notes on the Johnson. Beginning with his visits with the original Rocla Tyler Johson, his grandfather. No other living Johnson knows what the original Rocla told my uncle, yet a lot of it is in FamilySearch and Ancestry.
3. You need to know that all of the "Genealogy" of the Tulsa Johnsons was fabricated by Alta Johnson Hunt to discredit her father for "not sending her to Harvard". Her daughter, Virginia Lee Hunt promoted the fraud for her own uses and I have all the evidence to prove it. Virginia Lee made up "facts" and changed them when it suited her.
The crap on Ancestry is just that. Ancestry knows it, by the way.
4. The truth about the Johnson family is that a famous genealogy of the Johnson family was published in 1951. I own a copy.
It is usually regarded as the gold standard in family history research. You won't be able to get much out of it without the additions and explanations by several actual scholars including me. I can give you references that will keep you busy for a long time.
5. I have extended the family histories of my parents to identifying the first immigrants in the family - both sides. My work has been cited and published a few places and I've been to Europe and visited the last European homes of Johnson and Baer families. You can see the Baer's 17th century farms on Google in aerial photographs. I found graves of the first mothers of the Johnson and Baer immigrants and enjoyed walking around the graves and telling the mothers what their kids got up to in the New World...
6. After we buried my mother, I devoted all my resources to this research and I still discover significant facts, especially genetic.
7. In 1961, I met Francis Crick when he showed my genetics seminar the white photo with gray dots on it that got Watson & Crick the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of chromosomes.
At the same time, I was in Antarctica helping some real biologists retrieve the oldest living material on earth - the first stuff with DNA in it.
Almost as a joke, I announced, when our bottom scoop came up, "It's the primordial slime."
Nobody laughed...30 years later they proved that it was the oldest genetic material on Earth. It still is.
And I had nothing to do with it, except cutting a hole in the ice and retrieving some slime from a volcanic vent!
But I was thanked in the first research paper on the subject that sent people all over the earth finding more of it near volcanic vents on the bottom of the oceans.
I'm not going to "chat" with anybody. I don't mind putting you on my list of questions to answer.
For a start I'll set you the same task I gave your sister. Go find the list of Founders of Roxbury Latin School and see if any names seem familiar.
They ain't going nowhere, so take your time.
Next, recall where Faneuil Hall is. Later, you can ask the obvious question...How did anyone named Johnson miss this?
You'll also discover one of the first real heros recognized in New England and I'll introduce you to a chain that leads to your grandparents in Arlington.
You'll be entitled to call the morons in Tulsa, "Losers" as I do.
By the way, I'm about to launch you on the surprise of your life and it is all true. I've known it all for 40 years...
Steve knows nothing. Lora knows some, but doesn't care.
DJ
And then there’s this one…
Wait!
I sent you on a wild goose chase, accidentally! The questions I suggested you answer are not answerable because of the vagaries of the Internet. The answers are out there but buried in the manure of FAQ's which gag search engines these days.
1. My Reference to Faneuil Hall was to something on display iN the place, not the builder. What I wanted you to find was a display, probably long gone by now, showing the "Great Swamp Fight" in King Philip's War.
Look it up and see a half dozen of your ancestors among the casualties.
Chiefly look for Captain Isaac Johnson. He was a son of John Johnson, and brother of Humphrey Johnson. All three were immigrants and founders of Roxbury, later founders of Hartford and Roxbury Latin School - oldest US school in continuous operation still.
They all came to Boston in about 1635, founded Roxbury and went to church in Dorchester until Roxbury got their church built.
Most of the people around Roxbury were from the same small communities in England, in an area known for its attitude toward the Roman church and moron King Charles I.
"The Great Migration" began when Parliament's House of Commons had the King arrested for not doing his job, and the House of Lords impeached him, issued a death warrant and sent Oliver Cromwell after him.
Cromwell eventually arrested him, tried him, and beheaded him just after they did the same to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
During this period "The Great Migration" sent a few thousand well heeled and well educated Protestants to New England, mostly Massachetts and a fuse was lit that eventually blew up our dependency on the German king of England.
Villages and estates I've identified (and visited) in England sent Johnson and kin to Boston with their church rectors. About 80 such churches have been identified.
It is not an exaggeration to say these people invented Democracy, mostly before they came over here. Towns and villages in East Anglia had been quietly governing themselves for about 100 years. Many of them transplanted to New England, said "Hi" to Plymouth's Pilgrims and went somewhere else to create Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Isaac Johnson was our ancestor. His brother Humphrey was President FDR's ancestor, via a marriage to someone named Delano. FDR was Dwight Johnson's boss in WWII.
More about Missouri Johnsons later,
-DJ
I never did get that email and the usual Christmas message went unsent this year for obvious reasons.
No matter. The work of a family continues… even down an illustrious member.
I guess I’ll have to research the “Missouri Johnsons” without you though I’ve done enough to be dangerous enough to have caused a minor political scandal known as “Nazi lemonade gate.” Don’t ask. It’s too ridiculous.
Thanks for telling me our history. I’ve got the watch from here.
Good bye, dear Uncle Dwight.