71 years of marriage and adventure
by Liv Stecker
When Frank Johnson, Jr. got a flat tire in front of the little house in Renton, Washington, he had no idea about the lifelong adventure that was about to begin. He and his buddy, Jimmy Wendell, a “lady killer” by Frank’s standards, were more than a little delighted to be stranded near a house full of pretty high school girls, as he recalls, but one in particular caught his eye when he asked to use their phone. Kathleen Kells was fresh out of high school, and the way she tells the story it was love at first sight. Franks and “Teenie” (Kathleen) were an item right off. “Jimmy Wendell showed up with Frank at our house, and after that, we were dating!” She laughs, as if it were the most natural thing ever.
Kathleen was one of six children born to the only doctor in Kirkland at the time, who was killed in a car accident before she turned 3. The large family went from the comfortable lifestyle to borderline poverty almost overnight. “When I look back over it, I wouldn’t change a thing, which is amazing to me.” Teenie muses. Though they were poor, she said her family was happy and loved each other, and they didn’t seem to notice what they had to do without. Her upbringing prepared her for the series of adventures that she would follow Frank through.
The attack at Pearl Harbor happened that year, and Frank enlisted in the US Navy as World War II began to escalate. Teenie joined the war effort at Boeing and went to work as a real life Rosie the Riveter, building airplanes in a largely female workforce. “I thought it was a fun thing to do, because most of the men were gone, so it was a lot of women.” She reminisces. For three and a half years, Frank was deployed as a sonar technician on the USS Halford, DD-480, a destroyer that was launched in 1942 and spent a large part of war time in the Pacific Theater.
On Valentine’s Day, 1945, the Halford was patrolling Saipan Harbor in a smoke screen laid down for protection from a kamikaze attack,“There were airplanes coming from all directions,” Frank recalls, and in the confusion the Halford lost contact with a freighter and accidentally rammed the large ship, collapsing the bow of the destroyer like an accordion. The Halford was dry docked nearby for emergency repairs to the bow, and then sent back to the naval base at Vallejo, in California. Frank made the most of his shore leave at the end of March, 1945, by making his way up to Seattle to find Teenie and marry her.
The couple was married at a church in the University District in Seattle where Kathleen was living at the time, and then went to Vancouver, BC for a brief honeymoon. “I had made about six thousand dollars playing poker on board the ship,” Frank tells the story of their return to California, “That was a lot of money back then.” He took Teenie, her three sisters and an aunt to the San Francisco area where they stayed for six weeks in quonset hut housing while they waited for his ship repairs to finish. Nearly every night, the group went to San Francisco where they danced and went to clubs and enjoyed the nightlife of the big city. Both Frank and Teenie smile at the memory of what they call their “real honeymoon”, with a bevy of female family members in tow. In May of that year, the Halford set out to sea again with Frank on board, and Teenie went back to Boeing, where she worked until December, when their first daughter was born.
Frank completed his naval service at the end of 1945 and went to work in Seattle for the 13th Naval District doing clerical work. Before long, he grew restless in his job, and took a new position with the Seattle Police Department in the booking office. A curious fellow, always looking for adventure, Frank liked this job a little better than the Naval District: “I met all the interesting people who decided to make problems for society.” He chuckles. The Johnsons bought a little white house in the Fremont district, but Frank was working nights for the Police Department, and Teenie didn’t like having him gone all night. He left that job and went to work for Texaco, where he remained for 15 years, during which time they had two more children.
Their youngest son, Justin, was born 11 years after the second - a surprise that Teenie says was the highlight of her life. “I thought we were all done! But he was a special gift that came along.” She calls the unexpected baby her favorite gift from God. When Justin was very young, Frank and Teenie realized that the potential for moving up with Texaco was limited, so they sold everything they owned in the Seattle area and bought a hunting guide company that provided horse packing for trips into the mountains west of Yakima. “We inherited a truck, put everything into it and headed to the mountains.” Frank says.They moved into a primitive house in the woods and left the city to pursue one of Frank’s passions.
Every spare minute, Frank had spent hunting or fishing, often with the kids in tow, and taking on the outfitting company was a chance to do what he loved for a living. The hosted eight day pack trips along the Wonderland Trail at Mt. Rainier, one of which Teenie joined him for. “I had never even been on a horse!” she says, “I got to go on the trip and some of those women were so good - they helped me learn how to start a fire and cook food!” She got a taste of the rugged life that her husband and children loved. The Johnsons built a new house and shortly afterward, the makeshift cabin they had been living in burnt to the ground.
The company offered different types of guiding and packing for outdoor sportsmen, and during one trip, Frank had to take over guiding a mountaineering group on Mt. Adams without time to take the large multi-purpose truck and horse trailer back to the ranch. Teenie was stuck driving the cumbersome outfit down the winding switchbacks of Mt. Adams with a 2 speed rear end and complicated gear shifting system in the truck that the family had inherited. “She was a good sport,” Frank laughs, “to go along with it.” Teenie says there was no choice, and even though she had no experience operating the truck or negotiating the trailer around the hairpin turns, it had to be done.
The Johnsons operated the packing company, Indian Creek Corral, for 8 years, while Frank worked at White Pass ski resort as a lift operator in the winter season. One night coming down the ski hill, Frank said he was in too much of a hurry and broke both of the bones in his lower leg, ending his career in the packing business after several months in a cast. When he tried to return to the trail with his horses in a walking cast, he injured his knee severely clearing brush for a pack train. He was helicoptered out of the wilderness and his teenage daughter and son had to guide the train of pack “dudes” back out. Frank says the injury ultimately made a court reporter out of him, as he and Teenie realized that it was time for a career change.
They moved to California, and after a brief try working at a thoroughbred horse ranch, Kathleen saw an ad in the newspaper for court reporter training. Frank enrolled for a year of training in Los Angeles and went straight to work in that area as a reporter until he found an open position in John Day, Oregon, working with a Judge who served six counties. For eight years he worked in rural eastern Oregon, traveling with the judge to small towns around the country. In the meantime, Frank invested in a Mooney Mark 21 airplane and learned how to fly it.
As their youngest son Justin became involved in high school sports, Frank realized he was gone so much that he was missing most of his kids major milestones while he traveled around the state. He took a new job in the Miami area, but they weren’t in Florida long before the whole family missed the western states, so they moved back, first to Boise, then back to John Day, the Monterey area of California, and eventually, back to Seattle. “I love Seattle the most, it was always home to me.” Says Teenie, who was happy to back in her childhood home. Frank acquired a sailboat during their time in Seattle, and learned to sail. Frank laughs about how good natured Kathleen was about his many hobbies and career changes. “She went along with everything!” and Kathleen says she wouldn’t change a thing. “I have never not wanted to do what he wanted to do - it just felt natural.”
Frank retired in 1986 and for twenty years, the couple spent every winter together in Mexico, loading a boat on top of a truck canopy and pulling a 31 foot trailer down to the beaches of Mexico. For the first ten years they stayed near Guadalajara, and then they began spending winters on the Barra De Navidad, where Frank could deep sea fish to his heart’s content.
In 2000, the couple moved to Kettle Falls to be near their youngest son and grandchildren. Still riding horses until last year when he suffered a fall that set him back, Frank and Teenie have remained as active as life would allow. Teenie often asks her son Justin, a talented musician, to perform her favorite song for her at his shows. “The Impossible Dream”, from the play Man of La Mancha, is a fitting theme for a couple who have spent more than 70 years chasing down their dreams together. Frank and Teenie will celebrate their 71st wedding anniversary in March - a landmark that seems as much like the impossible dream as anything these days. Through war times and peace, rich and poor, highs and lows, Frank and Teenie tell the story of more than seven decades of commitment, devotion and adventure together.
