Sarah Caroline Ross Johnston Interview, January 6, 1988

Sarah Caroline Ross Johnston speaks about her life beginning in the late 1800s, and her family’s history in Montana and Illinois. She recalls her childhood and her education, which included her attending college for a teaching certificate. She recounts stories about her classmates dying of the Spanish Influenza as well as her childhood illness which kept her from participating in school much of the time. Johnston discusses meeting her husband after she moved to Montana for a teaching job and starting a family with him while they worked on a sheep wagon. She describes how the Great Depression affected her family, forcing them to sell their livestock and move to the Bitterroot Valley to work in the beet fields. Johnston discusses the difficulty of raising 11 children on very little money, and the amount of housework she oversaw, including canning enough food for the winter months. She touches on the lives of her children, then talks about her divorce and how it affected her emotionally and financially. She recalls her missionary trip to Iran in the 1970s where she lived for a year with the financial support of her children.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mtsettlersandhomsteaders_oralhistory/1023/thumbnail.jp