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Mail to Union Station barber from abroad during WWII may be coming home again
The Ogden Standard Examiner ^ | 03/10/2010 | Charles F. Trentelman

Posted on 03/10/2010 6:27:27 AM PST by Utah Binger

OGDEN -- World War II scenes an Ogden soldier drew on postcards and mailed to his dad, who was a barber at Ogden's Union Station, have turned up in Sacramento and may be coming back to town.

The baker's dozen postcards are a window to one family's life in Ogden.

The kid who drew them, William M. Johnson, also drew cartoons for the Standard-Examiner and went on to paint murals in Lehi and be a newspaper artist in Salt Lake City and, later, in California.

The kid's father, William Wallace Johnson, was a well-regarded Ogden businessman who cut the hair of movie stars and everyone else going through Union Station.

The kid's son, Mike Johnson, 57, was born in Ogden but now lives in Sacramento. He found the postcards while going through stuff his father, who died in 1981, left him.

He thought the postcards would have historical value, and some military historians he asked were interested, but then he got to thinking.

"When I looked at these, they're wonderful 1940s art, but the fact that they're connected to the war and the fact that my grandfather was the barber down there, when you look at the cartoons, they're saying something unique to the time," he said.

Unique to the time -- and the hometown.

(Excerpt) Read more at standard.net ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Utah
KEYWORDS: art; barber; cartoons; postcards
Artists in Ogden Utah?
1 posted on 03/10/2010 6:27:28 AM PST by Utah Binger
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To: Elsie; colorcountry; samadams2000; reaganaut; Tennessee Nana; greyfoxx39

Art from Ogden Utah ping!


2 posted on 03/10/2010 6:30:28 AM PST by Utah Binger (Mount Carmel Utah, Twelve Miles East of Zion National Park)
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To: Utah Binger

Someone you know ???


3 posted on 03/10/2010 6:33:42 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: Tennessee Nana
Anybody from Ogden knows the Barber of Union Station".
4 posted on 03/10/2010 6:48:43 AM PST by Utah Binger (Mount Carmel Utah, Twelve Miles East of Zion National Park)
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To: Utah Binger

Figaro Figaro Figaro

:)


5 posted on 03/10/2010 6:51:20 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: Tennessee Nana; Elsie

Seriously, we may try to help mount a showing of the art. That is if I can get off my tractor long enough to something creative.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2464829/posts?page=351#351


6 posted on 03/10/2010 6:54:29 AM PST by Utah Binger (Mount Carmel Utah, Twelve Miles East of Zion National Park)
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To: Tennessee Nana

BTW, I overheard a conversation you had with little Joey. Nice job!

Lots of creative folks here.


7 posted on 03/10/2010 6:59:05 AM PST by Utah Binger (Mount Carmel Utah, Twelve Miles East of Zion National Park)
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To: Utah Binger

Last night I came home and added an end bit but my Nana brain was tired and I didnt finish it...

I’ll redo it later...

I’ve done some in the past in here...

Mostly about Joey Smith and Martin Harris writing the bom etc...

I should have archived them

Joey Smith was an complex character...

Theres lots there to Lampoon...

or is it Harpoon ???

:)


8 posted on 03/10/2010 7:12:41 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: Utah Binger
Thank you taking the time and making the effort to post this! What a great article, and the slideshow of the artwork is definitely worth viewing.

The paper should be proud of their online presence. I visit lots of newspaper sites and frequently they look like an afterthought, sorta like “well we have a newspaper, let's do a web site!”

I especially like the software they use to do the actual slide show. Very intuitive, quick and the images show up very clearly.

I grabbed the source for the slide show and will take a look at it to see how they do it. Hopefully it's available somewhere for a reasonable price. I could probably reverse engineer the process, but golly, it would be a lot of work and I would rather spend my time posting slide shows than trying to debug someone else’s code! More importantly, whoever wrote the script that does the heavy lifting deserves to be compensated for their effort!

Thanks again!

9 posted on 03/10/2010 8:10:14 AM PST by jwparkerjr
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To: jwparkerjr
Thanks. Might as well post the Slide Show
10 posted on 03/10/2010 8:22:34 AM PST by Utah Binger (Mount Carmel Utah, Twelve Miles East of Zion National Park)
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To: jwparkerjr
You might be envious of where I live. All the great photographers come here, probably you too.
11 posted on 03/10/2010 8:30:24 AM PST by Utah Binger (Mount Carmel Utah, Twelve Miles East of Zion National Park)
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To: Utah Binger

It can be thrilling in going through some old keepsakes to find something like this. In looking through an old scrapbook kept by my great aunt I found a small piece of paper where she had written ...” I just heard on the radio about Pearl Harbor being bombed..” with the date of December 7, 1941 and the local time.


12 posted on 03/10/2010 8:33:52 AM PST by The Great RJ ("The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." M. Thatcher)
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To: Utah Binger

Heartwarming :-))


13 posted on 03/10/2010 8:47:11 AM PST by Andrea19
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To: Utah Binger

Thanks for the ping.


14 posted on 03/10/2010 9:05:28 AM PST by reaganaut (You say 'Jesus Freak' like it's a bad thing....)
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