Caryl D. Johnson

Caryl was born in Portland. Her family, parents Gerdau and Elsie, and sister Lois lived at 35th and Clinton. Caryl was in the January class at Hosford Elementary. It was the last January class at the school. The whole class went through their entire school years as the January class, and graduated in December.

During her school years, the family moved to 70 something and Sandy Blvd area. Lois had already started at Franklin High school, and opted to finish at Franklin, so she rode the bus every day to school. Caryl went to Grant High school, which was closer to their new home. She played cello in school. She wanted to play bass, but it was too big for her small hands.

Because Caryl graduated in December, she had to wait until September to go to college. In the interim, she took a business class and learned to use the Burroughs calculator. In the summer she worked at Jantzen Knitting Mills, doing piecework.

Caryl started college at Marylhurst. She commuted from Portland her freshman year and lived at the campus her sophomore year. It was an all girls’ school. She played bass, because they had a smaller bass. She remembers playing Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. She also sang in a women’s ensemble. For her junior year, she went to PLC (Pacific Lutheran college) in Tacoma, WA.

At PLC, Caryl started out in the 2nd best choir – a Chorus. In her senior year, she made it into the Choir of the West. This was where she met Cliff.

Sometime during her college years, her parents built their house on the Tualatin river. Gerdau and Elsie had been managing some apartments by 12th and Belmont, but Gerdau didn’t like how noisy they were. Lois and her husband had been living in the garage of the house (that’s all there was at that time). They added on a bedroom, which probably became the kitchen, and later added on two more bedrooms, a hallway, bathroom, and the living room.

A friend was getting married and asked Cliff and Caryl to be a part of a quartet singing at his wedding. The wedding was in the Portland area, so Cliff came down to Portland and stayed at Caryl’s parent’s house on the Tualatin River. He shared a one room tenthouse with her cousin. Caryl was in a trailer, because the living room and other bedrooms hadn’t been built yet. Cliff and Caryl got to know each other better.

Cliff had been working for the parks Department in Tacoma, but he could make more money with Astoria Plywood. He bought a working share in Astoria Plywood and became a controller there (an accountant) and cost accountant. He courted Caryl, coming from Astoria on the weekends and stayed until early Monday morning. Elsie sent along enough food to last him most of the week.

Cliff and Caryl got married on May 24, 1952. The company gave Cliff a turkey in November, and that was the beginning of Thanksgiving dinners. Caryl learned to cook the turkey. She continued to cook the turkey for thanksgiving dinners for the next 50+ years.

They lived in Astoria, because Cliff had shown the company how to cut costs and make a profit, so it was doing well. There they bought their first house and welcomed their first child, Ron into the world.

As the family grew, so did the need to earn more money, so Cliff took a job with a lumber mill in St. Helens, where Larry was born. They moved again to Tacoma, where Jean was born. As the kids were growing up, they moved again to Aberdeen, and finally to West Linn, where they remained.

Caryl was always the stay-at-home mom, but was always involved in church activities. While the kids were young, she was in the church’s Adult Choir, taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, and directed the Children’s Choir at various points. As the kids grew up and went off to college, she took a job as the Membership Secretary at Our Savior’s, their church in Lake Oswego. (They had chosen that church rather than one closer to home because her father Gerdau was the church organist at the time.) While Membership Secretary, she quickly became the unofficial proofreader for the bulletins and most mailings. After retiring as Membership Secretary, she continued to come in every week to help count offerings.

In West Linn, Cliff and Caryl’s home was a central location for gathering relatives for a thanksgiving dinner. They hosted thanksgiving dinner virtually every year they were there, filling the home with from one to three dozen extended family members as their kids, nieces and nephews grew up and began having children of their own. Everyone would bring a favorite dish to share and after dinner, kids and adults alike would enjoy conversation, and playing Pinochle and Mah Jong.

Caryl was always very frugal, reusing aluminum foil and plastic bags or containers for as long as they were serviceable, so she could be considered “green” long before it was in vogue. Also in the “green” theme, Cliff and Caryl always had a vegetable garden, each year growing corn, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, etc. She would harvest and freeze or can each year so in addition to the fresh fruits and vegetables in the summer and fall, the bounty would last well through winter and usually into spring. She would also make jams from grapes, blackberries, raspberries grown in the garden, although in later years Cliff would take some of the berry and fruit harvest to make wine.

As they neared retirement, Cliff and Caryl began to do additional volunteering and activities with organizations outside the church as well as within. Early on while in West Linn, they had gotten involved with Lutheran Choral, which would practice in the summers and offer concerts at various churches through the fall. They got involved in the neighborhood association, Lutheran Brotherhood (now Thrivent), and Northwest Medical Teams (now Medical Teams International). Even after Cliff’s death in 2009, Caryl continued to volunteer at Medical Teams International, going there every week to help pack boxes.

Caryl was preceded in death by Cliff, her husband of 56 years, and is survived by her three children, Ron, Larry, and Jean, six grand-children, and was most recently blessed to hold her great-granddaughter.