Joe and Maggie Johnson purchased the Z Bar Ranch 20 miles south of Evanston, Wyoming in 1919. This log cabin, previously owned by a Mr. George Tippetts, was the home where Joe and Maggie lived for twenty years before Maggie's death in 1939. They raised three daughters and three sons in the log cabin which actually sat on an old squatter homestead. Dorrit (Coutts), Zelda (Jamison), Fern (Myers), Kenneth, Milton and Russell.

Both Joe and Maggie had pioneer connections to Nauvoo. Joe Johnson's mother, Lydia Rebecca Baker Johnson was born in Montrose, Iowa, across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo. Montrose is also the location of the mothers death in 1845. Rebecca's mother, Mercy Young Baker died in Montrose leaving eight small children. Maggie Johnson's father, Amenzo White Baker, was nine years old when the family moved to Nauvoo. Both Lydia Rebecca and Amenzo White Baker crossed the plains with their family in the Jedediah M. Grant Company and arrived in the Valley of Salt Lake October 2, 1847, "not to a place of comfort and plenty, but to a howling wilderness."

Maggie's life in Evanston, Wyoming:

In later years, Maggie's son, Russell, described the family's humble log dwelling in the east meadow. "The house on the Z Bar was minimal to say the least. It was a three room log cabin with a door on the east side that opened into the living room. This door was seldom used as the floor had heaved and the door was difficult to open. Access to the house, therefore, was through the kitchen only. The Kitchen was sort of a lean-to attached to the west side of the original cabin, with its roof sort of a continuation of the roof of the cabin. The largest room of the three rooms which made up the log cabin itself, was the living room. This room was about fourteen feet square. This room was an everything room. It had the proverbial pot bellied stove, a big rocking chair, a dining room table and six chairs; a davenport which opened into a bed at night, a player piano, and Dad's desk. The coats, suits, overcoats, etc. were hung on nails driven into the wall behind the door leading to the kitchen. The only time this door was ever used was when someone was in the kitchen taking a bath in one of the galvanized laundry tubs.

"The other two rooms in the cabin were bedrooms. They were called the ėlittle bedroom' and ėMom's bedroom.' The little bed room was indeed little. It was just as wide as a bed is long and no wider, with three boards nailed together to form a wardrobe about six feet high, with room on top of storage, which was usually books. There was a sort of drape hiding the clothes. This room was about ten feet long.

"Mom's bedroom was a little larger. The overall dimension of the three rooms was about 20x24 feet. The kitchen was about 10x12 feet. This was about the entire space used for daily living.

"The kitchen contained a wood burning cook stove, a cupboard which contained dishes, cereals, sugar, etc., and a table which had a little shelf like affair which held spices, various pots and pans. It also had a small table which held four water buckets, a wash stand which held the was basin and had drawers which held dish towels, hand towels, and wash cloths. Behind the stove was a large wooden box which held firewood and beside which the coal scuttles were set. The range, of course, had a water reservoir on the side, against the firebox, to heat water. It had warming ovens above the stove at the back. The cooking utensils were hung on nails driven into the walls at the side and back of the stove.

"Adjacent to and in back of the kitchen was another lean-to shanty commonly called the ėback room.' The roof leaked and in the winter snow drifted in through the one outside door and through a hole near the roof. The floor had huge cracks and during wet weather water would shoot up through the cracks when the planks were stepped on. This room contained the ėseparator' which was a hand operated mechanism used to separate the cream from the milk."

"The house was tucked away in the trees on the bank of Cottonwood Creek. It was protected from the prevailing westerly winds but was exposed on the east side where a large meadow stretched for nearly a mile against a cove in the hills. The house actually sat on an old squatter homestead. There were some large cottonwood trees on the south side of the house, plus a lonely pine, with the privy on the north side at a strategic distance from the house. The privy was a two holer, one big and one little."

Today, the description of this home might make one think that Maggie and her family had to live in unfavorable circumstances and that they might not have been happy, but Maggie's son, Russell, remembered what a special place his mother made their home. He said "I think Maggie had a special talent for making a humble little log cabin, a palace, a place where we all wanted to be whenever possible. Somehow with Maggie there it was special and filled with love."

Russell asked "Can you imagine my dad and mother and six kids living in the house I have described? Was there conflict? There was some, I suppose, but surprisingly little. There was much respect for each other, love as brothers and sisters should know love. We had concern for each others' welfare and deep love for our parents, who, as I have previously mentioned, had a continual love affair going. We have all been close and concerned for each other all our lives.

One reason that the Joe and Maggie's children enjoyed being at home on the ranch was because of the love they felt there. One important reason for the feeling of love was the love that Joe and Maggie shared. Their son, Russell, remembered that his dad was "goofy" about Maggie. A ranch neighbor, Dorothy Proffit, remembered that Maggie seemed to "adore" Joe. Russell said "There were several times during my growing up years that I inadvertently interrupted them (Maggie and Joe) smooching out in the kitchen of the old house. They would smile and I would smile and they would return to what they were doing before I interrupted them. I would walk away feeling awfully good for some reason. Those were precious and tender moments I never forgot." Joe loved Maggie, and Maggie loved Joe, and their children knew it.

Creating a happy atmosphere where hard work and fun combined to provide a happy childhood for her family, despite difficult financial conditions, required a grand person, one who possessed courage, dedication, and good cheer. Maggie was such a person. She was quiet and soft spoken with a very pleasing personality. People liked to be around her and remembered her smile and friendly attitude. Friends and family described her as being good natured, kind, and considerate. She was remembered as "a beautiful, gracious, hospitable lady."

Religion was important to Maggie, so her children were given good basic religious training. Because of the distance involved, Maggie and her family did not attend church while living at the ranch. The family used to have a "religion" class at the neighboring Spencer ranch on Sunday afternoons during winter months. After the family got a radio, Maggie never missed listening to conference. She would sing along with the choir. Joe wasn't interested but he encouraged Maggie. In later years, whenever Maggie could attend church, she did.

Maggie loved animals and used to go out around the corrals just to "call on" the horses, cows, pigs, and chickens to see if they were "happy." She named all kinds of things such as horses, cows, pigs, etc. One of the things Maggie enjoyed was to have Joe hook a team to a little buggy they had and drive around the pasture and meadows so she could see the new calves, lambs, and horses. They used to do this early in the summer before the haying season. They went alone. No kids were invited.

On the ranch, "there was a certain routine to be followed. Summertime it was up at 5 A.M. to wrangle the horses, milk the cows, harness the horses, clean the barns, feed the chickens, separate the milk, (turn the separator to remove cream from the milk), eat breakfast, work in the field, eat lunch, work in the field some more, swim as we passed the creek going to the house in the evening, eat dinner, milk the cows, go to bed. Repeat the process."

And while the men of the family followed the daily routine, Maggie, with the help of her daughters, had her own routine to follow. She had to prepare the three hearty meals that the hungry family and the hired hands consumed each day. Before any of the meals could be cooked, a fire had to be built in the stove. Maggie's son, Russell, remembered his mother cooking on the "big coal and wood burning stove with the so-called warming oven and reservoir next to the fire box to heat the water. The oven had a thermometer which broke soon after Dad installed the stove. The thermometer was never replaced, but I can still see Mother opening the oven door and putting her hand into the oven to test the heat before putting bread, pie, or cake in to bake. She baked marvelous things, and I can never remember her burning anything. She routinely baked bread, cake, pies, muffins, and of course, biscuits.

There were no near-by grocery stores or fast food places to get "something for dinner." Food eaten by the family and the hired men was prepared daily on the ranch. There were no refrigerators, freezers, or microwave ovens to aid with food preparation. With the demanding physical labor done by the men on the ranch, they were hungry when they sat down to a meal. "Breakfast, during haying, consisted of cereal, toast, milk, eggs, bacon, ham, or steak, potatoes, etc. Everyone knew enough to eat a hearty breakfast because it was a long time from 7 A.M until noon and there was lots of hard work in between."

After the men had finished breakfast and were out in the fields, the water in the stove reservoir was hot enough for Maggie to wash the cream separator and the dishes. The house work had to be quickly completed and preparations for a large noon meal had to be started. In the afternoon, after doing the dishes, there might be an hour or two to work in the garden or to do some other household chore before it was time to begin to prepare the large evening meal. During the haying season, Maggie's daughter, Zelda, drove push rake in the hay fields, while Dorrit, Fern, and the hired girl, when there was one, helped Maggie in the house.

There was no electricity on the ranch during the twenty years Maggie lived there. For many years, she did all the laundry on a wash board. The ironing was done with a flat iron that was heated on the stove. In the evenings, Maggie sewed on a treadle sewing machine and mended clothes by the light of a coal oil lamp.

Sometimes when Joe was away buying cattle for Peck Brothers Livestock Commission or the John Clay Company, Maggie would invade the cow barn and help with the milking. She was a very good hand around the cows and sometimes she would sing while she was milking. It was sort of fun for the boys when their mother helped with the milking. Things got livelier and it became a game and wasn't so burdensome.

Maggie loved to work in the garden and the family always had a big one. The garden was always productive because Joe was a good farmer and knew when to water it. Maggie certainly knew how to garden, since as a young girl, she had worked in the family garden under her father's watchful eye. Maggie's son, Russell, remembered his dad saying "We had better plant a few extra rows to give away." People who came to visit the family always left with fresh produce from the garden. "Mother (Maggie) actually raised sweet corn even in that high altitude. We occasionally had trouble with porcupines as they would smash the hills of corn flat while trying to climb up to get the ears of corn."

There were additional chores that were necessary to keep the ranch running. Maggie's son, Russell remembered how hard everyone worked. "Not mentioned were chores such as feeding pigs, splitting kindling and wood to fill the wood box in the kitchen, carrying water from the creek to fill the reservoir on the kitchen stove and the ten gallon cans we used for storage so Mother would not have to carry water during the day. There was always fence to mend, ditches to dig out, stock to feed, barns to clean, plowing, harrowing, irrigation, stock to work, (branding, shearing, etc.) We milked lots of cows to get a little pin money in between the sale of stock or wool (a once a year deal.) Each spring we drug the meadows to break up and spread the manure dropped by the animals during the winter. Cleaning the corrals and using a manure spreader to fertilizer the plowed ground also was a continuing process.

"After the haying season was over and the stacks were fenced, the family brought the stock from the hill pasture and grazed it on the meadows. This was the lazy time on the ranch. The family got up a little later and sort of got ready for the isolation caused by winter snow."

Late in October Maggie and Joe butchered their hogs. They usually raised seven or eight hogs and fattened them for butchering. Maggie's son, Russell said that he could "still see the huge pans of sausage (his) dad and mother made; the spare ribs, bacon, and ham that was prepared. It was delicious and was sufficient to last an entire year."

Russell also remembered a funny incident involving a pig and his mother and the well house on the ranch. Russell said "I'll have to tell you about the well house. It was a little log cabin about thirty yards from the house. It of course had a well in it, which had a covering built over it, with a trap door in the cover, through which we lowered the bucket on a rope to dip up drinking water. It was very good water.

"Mother decided to get some fresh drinking water one day, so she went out, opened the trap door, dipped up a bucket of water and then decided she needed more. She left the trap door open, took the bucket of water into the house, and came back to the well house. She could hear something down in the well snorting around, making a ruckus. She looked down into the well, and there, swimming around, was a half grown pig that had somehow fallen into the well through the trap door. She knew the darn thing couldn't swim too long and stay afloat, so she practically hung by her heels head first in the well, got hold of the big by the ear, and started yelling for help. I guess the first one that came was Dad. It must have looked pretty comical. Here was Mother hanging in the well, upside down. Dad couldn't see her head at all, just her feet. He didn't know there was a pig in the well. He used to call Mother ėMeg' a lot and said, ėMeg, what in the world are you doing?'

"She said, ėNever mind what I'm doing, get this pig.' Dad said, ėWhat pig?' Mother said, ėThis pig I've got by the ear.' By this time Dad had decided there was a pig in the darn well. He was weak from laughing and he said, ėWhat are you doing with a pig by the ear?' Mother roared, ėNever mind what I'm doing with a pig by the ear. Get me out of this well!'

"Dad got hold of Mother and I guess by this time she was getting blue in the face from hanging upside down. We finally got the pig out of the well but we never used the water for drinking after that episode."

In addition to the fall hog butchering, there were other preparations made so that the family could survive the long winter months when they were snowed in. Maggie's son, Russell, recalled how Maggie and Joe made provisions to haul off few tons of coal to the ranch for the winter. They also made sure that the well house was filled with wood that had been chopped and split. Russell remembered that the family "made a root cellar in the area where we planned to build our new house and barns. It was made of logs and was mostly in the ground. It also had a thick dirt roof. We stored a ton or so of potatoes, gobs of carrots, rutabagas, cabbage, cauliflower, etc., which we raised. We gathered buckets of chokecherries from the bushes that literally covered the ranch and Mother made chokecherry jelly and syrup which was delicious on pancakes and waffles. Mother preserved bushels of pears, cherries, apricots, peaches, apples, etc. She also canned gooseberries and currants which we raised. We also gathered wild black currants and mother made jam and jelly, which was most delicious. All this canning was necessary to provide for not only ourselves, but our hired men. You can see that we had a food storage plan before the church advocated one." Even though they raised most of their food, there were supplies they needed to buy. They purchased "everything in quantity: flour by the half ton, honey in five gallon cans, coffee by the bucket, etc."

During the long lonely winter evenings, there wasn't much to do on the ranch. Maggie's son, Russell, remembered that his "Dad and Mother stocked the book shelves with the Book of Knowledge, Dickens, Shakespeare, Mark Twain and others. Dad answered an ad in the Literary Digest and bought some books called Wit and Humor of America. There was a set of history books, about Book of Knowledge size, which I read like novels. It was the most inclusive history of the world I have ever seen." In her later years, Maggie got a "kick out of entering contests which were in the magazines or newspapers, and she won several prizes."