Chris M. Christenson History Father of Elroy Christenson

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. 

1930's - The Depresssion 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 get 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 flurishes here. 

1935- Violet Kirkland graduates from Cranfills Gap High School.  She is the Valditorian 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.

Cranfills Gap, 1910
unknown photographer, reprinted in the Clifton Record, 1978

In the above photo, Cranfills Gap is barely more than a few buildings.  In the caption below "Christ Christenson, on extreme left and G. O. Bronstad with vest, over on right with boys in center being Ervin Christenson and Clyde Bronstad."  The Chris Christenson in this picture is actually my dad's uncle with Ervin being his son.  Three years later my dad is born.

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.  They had various occupations.  Ed had a gas station in which Chris also worked.  In the evening periodically they would also bring in silent films they would project on the back wall.  A piano player would fill the action with music.  At one time Chris is a school bus driver, projector operator in the movie house while Violet sold tickets. He also bought a shoe repair store from the old retiring owner.   He mostly repaired farm equipment such as the canvas used as the bottom of trashing machines.   There are not enough shoes to be repaired to make a go of the business.   He puts the equipment in storage and looks for another job.  He goes to Gary, Indiana to the steel mills for the first time.  After a short stay he is laid off and returns to Texas. 

Chris in his shoeshop in Cranfills Gap, Texas.
photo in collection of Elroy Christenson

During the late 1930's they went to West Texas to work as a cook for the large MacElroy Ranch. The manager from the ranch came to Cranfills Gap and asked at the bank for Norweigian cook.  Since the bank manager was a relative and knew that Chris and Violet needed work he recommended them even though she was not Norweigian 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 chuckwagon 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.

After the war they returned to Cranfills Gap where they built a house but found little work and moved back to West Texas to work in the oil industry. In 1950 they moved to Grand Prairie with other relatives to work in the aircraft industry. The ups and downs of military contracts caused Chris to get laid off and forced changes in his jobs several times.

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.

1976- Chris retires and they 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.

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

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.

All information and photos included within these pages are here for the express purpose of genealogical research and may not be included or used for any commercial purpose or included in any commercial site without the express permission of Elroy Christenson. Copyright Elroy Christenson 1998-2003.

web pages created by Elroy Christenson- echriste@sccd.ctc.edu - last updated 6/20/08