Dorothy Johnson (1905 - 1983)
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Dorothy Johnson, a successful Western fiction author, grew up in Whitefish, Montana. During her life Johnson wrote 17 books about the western frontier in the 19th century. She graduated from the University of Montana in 1928 with a degree in English. After time away she moved back to Missoula in 1953 to teach Creative Writing at the University. She also worked for the Montana Press Association throughout the 1950s.
Dorothy Johnson received several awards in her lifetime including the Western Writers of America Spur Award and the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award. She was well respected by native tribes in Montana, adopted into the Blackfeet Nation in 1959 and given the honor of participating in the peyote ceremony of the Native American Church on the Crow Reservation. In 1973, she received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Montana. Johnson spent her life serving both the University and the larger Montana community. Johnson passed away at the age of 78 from Parkinson’s disease. Her gravestone read, “PAID” she said that only her and God knew what it meant. For more information on Dorothy Johnson please visit Montana Women’s History, Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame, Montana Historical Society, PBS Documentary Gravel in Her Gut and Spit in Her Eye and a biography by Steve Smith. The Dorothy M. Johnson Papers are housed in the Mansfield Archives and Special Collections. |