As a philanthropist, Walter S. Johnson is most famous for his 1959 contribution to the preservation of the Palace of Fine Arts, an act that ensured the endurance of the iconic San Francisco landmark.
Mary became deeply unhappy and moved to San Francisco to pursue a newspaper career, leaving Walter and his four siblings in the temporary care of their father.
[1] Mary not only interviewed such names as Jack London, Gertrude Atherton, and Sarah Bernhart, but also got the daring "scoop" on the subjects of renowned trials and events including murderers and pugilists.
The three young daughters, Ruth, Cornelia and Harriet, went to live with their mother, who later remarried, while the boys, Walter and Alfred Jr., stayed with their father.
Greatly disheartened by his wife's departure and the divorce that followed, Alfred sold his farm, packed his two sons and all his belongings and headed out to sell musical instruments.
In the crevice of time in the late 19th century before the total proliferation of the railways, roads and telegraph and before the population grew and native culture diminished, Walter was able to experience a final frontier.
He and his father and brother fished, shot game, battled bears, braved rivers and weather, encountered Native Americans and collected a lifetime of memories.
Johnson and a friend, Tom Truxell, were able to salvage some of the family belongings and keep them from looters by burying valuables in the yard and taking a second load to the Presidio.
Shortly after the earthquake, Walter Johnson gathered the newsboys he knew from his job at the Bulletin and started selling out-of-town newspapers and magazines.
As a lawyer and business manager, Johnson used his skills to persuade workers to continue production, and by extension, remove I.W.W members from positions of power.
His legal and business skills were again used as the war wound down and he was transferred to New York City to settle government contracts with war-materials factories that were closing down.
The three became fast friends and Johnson was convinced to move his family to Stockton where he incorporated and looked after the legal matters of Tartar and Webster.
Johnson soon learned the ropes, selling large quantities of wooden crates to suppliers and directly to fruit growers and canneries.
San Francisco became the center of the lumber business and Johnson operated an office at 1 Montgomery Street, in the Crocker Bank Building.
With good management and strong business ethics, it weathered the depression and by the end of World War II, the corporation was a multi million-dollar operation.
Friden's plant in San Leandro, California grew to consist of 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) of facilities and employed over 500 people.
After the war, the plant continued to make delicate instruments and expanded its line of calculating products, catering to the needs of scientists, businesses and industry.
As a young couple, Mabel and Walter Johnson had the good fortune to be living in San Francisco as the Panama-Pacific Exposition was being planned and built.
The expo was to be a grand celebration of the opening of the new Panama Canal, but would also let the world know that San Francisco had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Strewn over what had been a marshy shore, some thirty palaces of science, art and culture, statehood, and industry sprung into existence only a few years after the first shovel was turned.
In February 1915, the fair opened to a crowd of 255,149[4] and welcomed such notables as Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison and Charlie Chaplin, and even the Philadelphia Liberty Bell.
For many years after the fair, the crumbling building continued to be a San Francisco point of interest and pride, drawing visitors from all over the world.
California Representative Caspar Weinberger sponsored a state assembly bill offering $2 million in restoration funds if the city of San Francisco would match it.
Today, the Walter S. Johnson Foundation[6] continues his legacy, funding education, leadership and economic development programs for youth and families.