Biography of Gertrude Johnson and Winnie Johnson

Biography of Gertrude (Mrs. Frank A.) Johnson and Winnie (Mrs. E. W.) Johnson as founding members of the Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church in Austin. Notes their being awarded 'Honorary Life Memberships in the Women of the Church.'

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_The following text was extracted via OCR from the digitized scan held by The Portal to Texas History (UNT Libraries). OCR can introduce errors, especially on handwritten material; the canonical record links to the original scan._

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Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church Women of the Church SISTERS-IN-LAW: TWIN PILLARS IN COMMUNITY CHURCH Gertrude (Mrs. Frank A.) Johnson Winnie (Mrs. E W.) Johnson Two charter members of Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas, served a Presbytery-sponsored community mission for four decades before it became a church, and have continued to be faithful participants in the life of that church. The Women of the Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church want to thank these two ladies, Mrs. Gertrude Johnson and Mrs. Winnie Johnson, for their work through-out the ycars, by conferring on them Hionarary Life Memberships in the Women of the Church. Gertrude Jung was born in Austin, Texas on October 16, 1895. She was raised in a Lutheran family and went to St. Paul's Lutheran School in Austin as a young girl. When she married Frank A. Johnson in-1913, her part in the shaping of the Eanes Community began. At that time. Eanes was a rural community in the hills immediately west of the Colorado River and the city of Austin. Frank, one of eleven children born to-the Henry Johnsons, had grown up on a farm in the area. He and Gertrude soon contributed three more Johnson boys to the clan, Albert, Randolph, and Chester. One of Frank Johnson's brothers, Ed W. Johnson, married Winnie Sarah George in 1915. Winnie is a native of Hayes County, having been born near Dripping Springs, Texas on October 28, 1895. During the first 20 years of their marriage, Winnie and Ed became the parents of ten children, and endured the heartache of losing three of these in early childhood. Five sons and two daug hers grew to adulthood: Edward, Leonard, Dudley, Cecil, Kathrine Gene, and Winifred. The Johnsons knew the importance of raising tlh-ir children in Christian homes and of letting them share in a felLowship of other Christian families. So when a Camelit minister and a student from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary discovered their rural community and began a ministry for its resi- dents, the Johsons were among those families who brought their children to the one.-room frame school building for Sunday School and worship services. Eanes Chapel, as the building was called, later became a mission of University Presbyterian Church. When a stone building was built to house the church and the vomen prepared hot meals and brought them to the building site for their The Johnson ladies recall helping with Bible School in the open air during summers. Often the women got together to make quilts for an orphanage in the Itasca, Texas, or clothes for the poorer families in the area so that their children could go to school. They remember organizing box suppers to earn money when the stone building was being constructed and later to buyaran forthe worship services. Each Christmas Winnie Johnson went to a loc piano- cery store to ask for donations of fruit, nuts, and candy which the a en gave

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Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church Women of the Church to the children of the tenant farmers and cedar-choppers in the community. She and her sister-in-law served as treasurers of the Eanes Chapel during the 1930's and 40's. By the time the Eanes Community had grown large enough to organize an independent church in 1953, the Johnsons' children were grown and raising families of their own. Most of them still live in thewarea and are active in the worship and work of the Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church. The age and health of these two dedicated church-women have forced them to reduce their organizational activities somewhat in recent years. But their influenceacontinues to be felt as they remain faithful in theirtprayers for the church, and in the strength and encouragement they give to the younger Johnsons who are now continuing the work begun in this community a half- century ago.

Original record: metapth1065509 on the Portal to Texas History.