In the dark of winter in January 1916, when World War I already was raging in Europe, an elderly widow took her final breath in the prairie town of Hastings, Nebraska. Although Caroline Herrick Johnson left behind a large family and was praised at the time for her virtuous life, her death at age 89 probably didn’t seem particularly remarkable. Her final resting place, next to that of her husband William Johnson, is in Block B at Parkview Cemetery.
Learn more, however, and one can see that Caroline Johnson truly was a remarkable figure in Hastings history — a person who for the final 40 years of her long life provided a living, breathing, hand-to-hand link between an upstart Midwestern farming community and the very founding of the United States of America. You see, Johnson was the daughter of a soldier who fought for the Continental Army 135 years before her death, risking life, limb and future in the struggle to secure the 13 American colonies’ independence from the British Crown. The father’s hands she held as a child had carried weapons in the Revolutionary War.
Fast-forward to a sun-splashed August ceremony on Saturday, when that remarkable connection was commemorated at Johnson's gravesite by the Daughters of the American Revolution with support from their male counterparts, the Sons of the American Revolution. Remarks were offered. Prayers were said.
Wreaths were laid. America’s colors were presented by members of the Sons of the American Revolution dressed in.