I was born March 1st, 1922 to Elmer James Justus and Jeannette Stone Justus in a small farm house in Colchester Township, McDonough County, Illinois, about five miles Northeast of the town of Colchester. I was the first of six children–three boys and three girls. My father farmed a small farm that he inherited from his father (my grandfather), William Fleming Justus. Grandpa Justus lived with us until he died in 1928. I was six years old when he died so I have some recollection of him. My Grandma Justus died before I was born
My mother’s parents, Henry Stone and Maria Jane Galloway-Stone lived in Colchester and I can remember what fun it was to go into town to see them. There were five of my mother’s brothers and sisters there too so there were lots of cousins to play with.
The second child born to my parents was Kathryn Jane Justus. She was born November 27th, 1923–one year and nine months after me. I can’t remember the day she came, but I have lots of recollections of us playing together. We had to play with each other or with no one because there were no others living close.
When I was five, we moved from the “Old Homestead” to a much larger farm about 15 miles north on the prairie in Emmet Township. I remember not liking to move because it took me much farther from my cousins. But I soon adjusted because I started to school that year and found new playmates. The school was about two miles from our home. It was a one-room, eight-grade school. My first school teacher was Miss Vance. She lived in Macomb, Ill., and had a shiny new black model A Ford that she drove to work.
In that year, 1928, Grandfather Justus died and my sister Janice Lee Justus was born. Also that year, my dad got his first car–a 1921 Dodge touring car. The word “touring” meant that it did not have window glass in the doors. When the weather was bad we had to snap isinglass curtains on the doors.
We lived about three years on the farm and moved to another rented farm (called the Ledgerwood Place) about three miles away. We were still in the same school district. I remember skipping the third grade–not because I was smart, but because there were no others in the third grade. The winters were very cold and with lots of snow. Snow would drift up over the fenced and form a crust on top of the snow so we could walk on top of the snow right over the fences.
We stayed at the Ledgerwood place about two years and then moved to another rented farm in Blandinsville Township. The school house here was a one-room, even smaller than the one we moved from. We were well into the depression by then and things were rough. We didn’t have much money but being farmers, we had plenty to eat. We always had a large vegetable garden and orchards and we gave lots of food to our “city” cousins. We also butchered two or three beef cows and upwards of twelve hogs every fall. We had lots of wild game (rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, etc.) and my uncles and cousins came out from town about every weekend in the winter to hunt.
I finished elementary school in 1935 and went to high school in Colchester, Ill. I stayed at my Grandmother Stone’s while in school. It was great because I was back in touch with my cousins. At one time there were five of my cousins in the same school–some even in the same class.
In 1937 my father got tired of “share-cropping” so he bought a farm in Hancock County, Carthage Township, Ill. I took my last year of high school at Carthage Community High School, graduated in 1939.
My brother, James, was born in 1938 and my brother, Jerrald, was born in 1940. I hardly got to know them very well because World War II came along and separated us for a time.
In the summer of 1940 two of my friends and myself went to Rock Island, Illinois to enlist in the navy. My friends were accepted, but I did not pass the physical examination. In January of 1941, I enlisted in the Illinois National Guard–not because I was so patriotic, but because I needed the money ($21 a month) and for the social aspect.
In March of that same year, 1941, the Guard was mobilized and our unit, Illinois 33rd Division, was moved to Camp Forrest in Tennessee. That following December, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the war was on. In the early weeks of the war two of my friends that had enlisted in the Navy were killed in action. I was almost immediately transferred from the Army to the Air Corps and sent to Oakland, California for aircraft engine maintenance schooling.
After school in Oakland I was sent to Salt Lake City, Utah for reassignment. I was in Utah only about two months but during that time I met Beatrice Christie Annie Ericksen. I met her at a restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City where she was working.
I was assigned to a combat bomber group and sent to Rapid City, South Dakota for further training and staging. From there we went to Walla Walla, Washington, and then to Pocatello, Idaho. Beatrice had a sister in Pocatello, and she would come to see her sister and I got to see her when she wasn’t too busy visiting with her sister. I also made a few trips on leave to Salt Lake to see her.
Our unit was about ready to be sent to Europe and everyone was called to their final physical before leaving. I did not pass the physical. I was, instead, interviewed for, and accepted for Officer Candidate School, which I declined. I guess I was disappointed at not being able to go with my unit. I had been with it long enough to form many close friends. I was then sent to Automatic Pilot/Bombsite training school at Lowry Field, Denver, Colorado, and from there to Kearney, Nebraska. My job there was to do maintenance work on automatic pilots and bombsights in B-17’s and B-24’s. It was a staging base where crews came to form combat units and to pick up their new airplanes. It was a very interesting job and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was while I was stationed in Kearney, Nebraska that Beatrice Christie Annie Ericksen came to see me, and where I added a name to her many other names.
I was then transferred to Herrington, Kansas Air Force Base to do the same kind of work as in Kearney except that the airplanes were B-29’s. I flew many 15-hour missions, called “Slo-Timing” to put hours on the new airplanes before the combat crews took them over. I remember one such mission that took us from Kansas, to Mexico, to Cuba, up the East Coast, and back to Kansas. Most of the time we flew at 40,000-ft. altitude.
It was while in Herrington, Kansas that our first child, Charlene Kay Justus, was born on March 3rd, 1945. In October of 1945 I was discharged from the Air Force and went to Salt Lake City where I worked for the Veteran’s Administration. I also went to sign-making school, learning to make neon signs. Our second child, William Elmer Justus, was born on December 21, 1946.
After sign school, I bought into a sign company in Kirksville, Missouri, and moved there in 1947. It was while here that our third child, Joy Jean Justus, was born on August 21st, 1950. It was also while in Kirksville that I became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was baptized in May of 1949 in a new chapel in St. Louis.
Bea’s health was very bad in Missouri, and we had to move back to the West. I took a job as a neon sign tube bender in a young sign company in Spokane, Washington.
I had a very interesting career with the Spokane Sign Company, later known as American Sign & Indicator. I was allowed to buy into it and made a partner. I was with it 33 years until I retired in 1983. The company was locally in Spokane, but it grew to be an international company and one of the largest sign companies in the world. I had an opportunity to do much traveling, not only to every state in the US, but to many countries of Europe, Asia and Australia.
It was while in Spokane that three other children were born–Ruth Ann Justus on May 29th 1954; Deanna Colleen Justus on March 29th, 1956; and Tracy Jan Justus on January 23rd, 1965.
In 1986 my companion and I went on an 18-month mission to Barbados in the West Indies.
In November 1992, we were called to a 12-month Family History Mission in Salt Lake City, Utah.
