Chris, Violet, Elroy and Ima Jean in Easter, 1953, Grand Prairie, TX photo collection of Elroy Christenson

Chris Christenson Chris M. Christenson History Father of Elroy Christenson

his father: Pete Legind Christenson b. Denmark
his mother: Cora Rohne b. TX

1913, Sept. 2 - Christian Monroe is born on the Heinchman Ranch, Hamilton Co., Texas to Peder L. and Cora (Rohne) Christensen. The crops are prosperous but he is doing well mostly on blacksmithing. [#30124 Texas Birth and Death Index, 1903-1993]

1922 - Cora, his mother, dies of a hemorrhage during childbirth.   Pete farms out the kids to relatives while he tries to pull himself together.   Eva Johnson, a niece to Cora, is brought in to help with the kids and the house.   They eventually marry. 

Chris attends school through the ninth grade and tries various trades to make a living.  While in school Chris takes a wood shop class and creates several items.   They show that he had manual skills that need dexterity and planning from a fairly early age.  His last year may have been 1929. 

US Census, Texas, Hamilton County, Justice Precinct One. enum. dist. 97-4, sheet 10A.

1930's - The Depression caused everyone to have to work harder.  Violet had attended school in Dallas but her mother met and married Ed Johnson who had been from Cranfills Gap.   He came to Dallas with his step-mother for treatments of cancer of the jaw.  When the Depression hit Ed couldn't get a job in Dallas and he figured he could at least get some work and a cheap place to live in the Gap.  They lived in a small three room house on the hill above the town.  The kids slept on day cots on the front porch much of the time. They somehow got by.  Violet and Roy attend school in the small school and perhaps because of their earlier schooling were some of the best students here.  Violet meets Chris in Dallas and their friendship flourishes here.  

1935- Violet Kirkland graduates from Cranfills Gap High School.  She is the Valedictorian of the graduating class.  Because of this she receives two scholarships to continue her education - one of which was to the University of Texas at Austin.   She decided instead to get married and gave one of the scholarships to a the junior college in Clifton to a classmate.   The other was not transferable.

Violet Kirkland is the 2nd from the rt. not the left as labeled. I believe that Jake Christenson is the 2nd from the left.
photo collection of Elroy Christenson

Chris in his shoe shop in Cranfills Gap, Texas. photo in collection of Elroy Christenson	Violet and Chris at their marriage 1936

photo in collection of Elroy Christenson photo in collection of Elroy Christenson The description here may be miss-labeled.  I think it should read  (lft > rt) Buck Johnson, (perhaps Elmer Kelton), ranch manager ?, Herman Reesing (behind), Elroy Christenson, Billy Johnson (Buck's son), Chris Christenson with Ima Jean, and Blake (unknown). photo in collection of Elroy Christenson

During the late 1930's they went to West Texas to work as a cook for the large McElroy Ranch in Crane County. The manager from the ranch came to Cranfills Gap and asked at the bank for Norwegian cook. Since the bank manager was a relative and knew that Chris and Violet needed work he recommended them even though she was not Norwegian and did not really know how to cook. She learned on the job. Here Violet was the cook for 5 to 7 adults on a daily basis. Chris was the ranch and kitchen helper by providing firewood of mesquite wood and roots for the cook stove and doing the heavy lifting. The ranch covered thousands of acres and was populated by mesquite trees, prickley-pear cactus, jack rabbits, rattlesnakes, cattle and oil wells.  Roundup time brought in more hands but a chuck-wagon cook was hired to work the roundup.  One requirement that they had on the ranch was no children and Violet was getting anxious to start of family.   She finally contacted a cousin, Melba and Buck Johnson, to take their place.  As the war broke out they moved with other relatives to Gary, Indiana where Chris learned the trade of welding. He worked as a welder for most of his life. Elmer Kelton, the western writer, lived on the McElroy Ranch as a child while Violet and Chris had been here. The Depression brought even more dust storms to this region.  On numerous occasions the sand would blow so thick that they couldn't see across the road.  They had to keep themselves and the animals inside.     In the photo at the bottom left, Elmer Kelton is a re-knowned writer of westerns.  His father was a ranch manager.  He consequently spent a great deal of time here and knew Violet and Chris. His experiences here obviously gave a great deal of realism to his stories.        photo in collection of Elroy Christenson

Chris and Violet early marriage was plagued with issues of money.  They couldn't afford a place of their own so lived with her parents in the house on the hill in Cranfills Gap, Texas.  The following census was probably done in between the stays is Gary, Indiana.  Chris had already been working in the steel mill.  [Violet C.]

1940- US Census, Cranfills Gap, enum. dist. 18-20, page 8 
         
             Johnson,       Edd  M.         head        m  w    38   mar    Texas              renter    carpenter helper    sch. bldg  
         
              "              ,   Sadie              wife         f   w    40   mar    Arkansas
         
             Kirkland,      Roy            step son      m  w    17     s       Texas                            laborer                    farm
        
             Christenson,  Chris M    soninlaw     m  w    26   mar    Texas                            rigger                      steel mill
        
              "                  , Violet        step dau      f   w    21   mar    Arkansas                       clerk                       dept store

After the war they returned to Cranfills Gap where they remodeled a small house near the end of 3rd (Main) Street.   They added on and up graded it with an in-door toilet.  Times were tough but all the family pitched in to frame the house and hand dig the septic tank. Violet put on the wall paper while taking care of two toddlers.

 Cranfills Gap, TX - 510 3rd Street. ( it has not changed much since 1945)
                                   photo Elroy Christenson 2016 

Chris and Bradley Witte in front of the steamer.

The family moved back to West Texas to live two room cottage in a trailer park in Odessa.  Chris goes to work for Cody and Teague Steam Service in the oil industry which Herman Reesing, his brother in law had already been employed.  He frequently would have to stay out days at a time usually in the very coldest weather while Violet took care of the kids.  This was typically when the oil would refuse to flow because the parafin in the oil would coagulate.  Steam would be pumped into the ground or lines in order to liquify the oil with heat.  The trailer park is sold.  Chris and Violet buy the two room  cottage and have it moved to a lot near the  airport at 323 Vine Street.   They double the size and put up a picket fence.  Elroy starts school here at Fannin Elementary.  He walks to school frequently and on many occasions through blowing sand storms.  A couple of times it also rained mud. This is also where Elroy, then in the second or third grade is invited over to a girls house who lived in a Haliburton housing project.  While her parents were gone she showed him the different ways that two people could kiss -  this was an interesting introduction to the female methods.  In 1950 the family moved to Grand Prairie with other relatives to work in the aircraft industry. Times were good enough to come up with enough money to buy a house on Clarice in which the family lived until 2006. Elroy, Ima Jean and Janice attend Bowie Elementary down the street. The ups and downs of military contracts caused Chris to get laid off and forced changes in his jobs several times

1953- (or about there) Elroy starts his art career. This ship watercolor is done on construction paper and one of the about five pieces that my mother saved of my early efforts.  The portrait of my grandfather, Pete Christenson, was done about 1960. 

Schooner by Elroy Christenson abt 1953 (age of 10 or 11)

Pete Christenson by Elroy Christenson abt 1960

1954- Janice Christenson is born and very much a surprise.  Being twelve years younger than her brother, Janice is raised as an only child.  I love these old black and white photos.  Violet, Elroy, Ima Jean and the young Janice. 

1966 - Chris gets a position as maintenance welder for TXI, a cement making plant in Medlothion, Texas. He remains here until his retirement. Although Violet had done some drawing most her life she had not spent much time at it until Elroy started his college career toward commercial art. She now started taking art lessons on her own. Chris putters at buying, fixing up and selling.  He buys and old wreak of a horse trailer, puts new boards in the bottom, and welds on a new hitch.   He buys an old welding truck that came out of the oil fields.  He cleans it up,  makes everything work right.  He may have been hoping to go into business with it but instead sells it.  He reads the want ads every night but seldom calls on any of them.  It seems to be more of a curiosity than any real intent to make money off of it.  His brother Jake was much more serious as a used car dealer but he too never got rich off his efforts. 

1976- Chris retires. They buy and travel trailer and do some expected traveling and fishing for the first two years. Violet and Chris make a trip with Roy and Jo Nell Kirkland, Violet's brother, to Seattle to visit Elroy. During the rest of the year they put together a booth to display Violets paintings at various local arts fairs. She has great success

1975- Chris and Violet return during the summer and help Elroy repair from the flood of Dec. 1975.

1976-1980 - Violet begins care of her mother, who is ill with cancer. Ed and Sadie live with them until her death on 11/2/1980.

1981? - after only a few years of retirement Chris starts to show signs of failing memory. Violet cares for Chris on an almost constant basis for seven years.  Ima Jean comes into town frequently for the companionship of her mother and stays in the house, which was very appreciated.  Ima Jean preformed many tasks to spell her mother which included on probably several occasions bathing Chris.  He was quite the walker and would take off if not locked into the house.  On one occasion he walked all the way across Grand Prairie while everyone searched the neighborhood for him. 

1989, July 26 - Chris dies after protracted illness from Alzheimer disease and is buried with proper Mason ceremony in the Boggy Cemetery near Cranfills Gap, Texas.

1993, Feb. 28 - Violet wins the Manager's Award for her "Texas Cattle Barn" in the Images Art show in Grand Prairie, TX. as well as, a 2nd place in the Professional category.

1994, Sept 30- Violet wins first prize for "The Barn with Bluebonnets" watercolor in the ATA Mini Show.

Vi Christenson by the staff photographer, Grand Prairie News

1997, 21 Aug., Thursday - "Victorian Vocation", article appears in the Lifestyle section of the Grand Prairie News featuring Vi Christenson with color photos and a description of her goals and activities in watercolor and oil painting. "I've drawn all of my live, but I didn't really start painting until in the 1960's. .... I started with oils to learn the colors, because I had always worked with pencil and pen." "I'm Proud of what I do. It's not fancy, but I like it," she said. "I've been really lucky to get awards. I really just enter them because I like to show by work."

2003, Sept. 12 - Ima Jean Christenson Perry succumbs to intestinal cancer after a brief but intense illness. Although under going chemo-therapy to no avail she expired very quickly after her birthday in a nursing home in Dallas, Texas. She was a caring mother to her children and grand-children. She stayed regularly for weeks at a time with her mother and called her frequently. She will be deeply missed. She had memorial services in Grand Prairie and Emory, Texas with friends and family including her mother, Violet Christenson; husband, Eugene Perry; son, Glenn Perry, daughter-in-law, Lorie; daughter, Tammy McCoy, grand children, Sadie, Loren, Violet Perry, Justin and Hailey McCoy. She's buried in Emory, Texas a few miles from her home.

2006, Aug. - Violet is moved to Seattle to lived with Elroy and Cheryl for seven years battling with dementia, cataracts, hearing loss, and mobility issues. 

2014, Sept 5, at 7:20 pm - Violet dies at Shoreline Health and Rehabilitation, Shoreline, WA,  after two months of confinement initially from a bladder infection then later with a broken arm and leg from trying to get out of bed.  She fought to bitter end surrounded by Cheryl and Elroy. Her ashes will be buried at the Boggy Cemetery near Cranfills Gap, Texas next to Chris.  [EC]

Violet in March 2014, Seattle, WA

Pete Christenson Image Map | Pete's Ancestors | Pete's Children

Pete Christenson | Emroy Christenson | Marie Christenson | Clarice Christenson | Ane Christenson | Jacob Christenson

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Elroy's Family Index || Rohne/Egeberg family reunion ||  Rohne/Egeberg Lineage Map || Ancestor Chart #6
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