Forgotten memorial finds a family home

Sigfred Johnson considered himself the "black sheep" of his family. It was likely because he liked to drink beer while most of his relatives were teetotalers. And there were a lot of them. Born in 1909 to Severin and Anna Johnson, Sigfred was in the middle of a pack of 12 children growing up on 22nd Avenue in Cloquet, where the city rubs against Scanlon's west side.

Sig, as he was known, worked for the city of Cloquet's sewer and water works department and had an outsized personality. He drank his beer at Jake's Place, today known as the Lost Tavern. Stories from patrons of Jake's have Sig cracking 12 eggs into a pitcher of beer and drinking it.

What we know about Sigfred Johnson comes from his nephew, Kenny Johnson. He's 86, and remembers his uncle as a child and teenager, and later through stories heard at Jake's. It is also known that Sig served in World War II in an anti-aircraft battalion from 1942 to 1945. He survived the war but not a series of ailments that came soon after. He died at age 39 in 1948.

This week, Kenny Johnson received a curious plaque from John Prouty honoring Sigfred Johnson. It's curious because Prouty, captain of the Cloquet Combined Honor Guard, fetched the plaque from an auto parts yard northwest of Cloquet.

He was tipped off about the plaque hanging at Mark's Salvage & Recycling of U.S Highway 2 in Saginaw. A customer visiting the yard from out of town saw the plaque (see accompanying story) and wanted to make sure it hadn't been stolen from a grave. He went to the Cloquet VFW to try and find information about Sig but it didn't have any records.

Prouty, who once sold similar plaques, later heard from the VFW and went up and got the plaque. Then he asked the Pine Knot News to do some digging.

If Sig thought he was the odd child out in his family, at least one brother didn't think so. His brother, Melvin, gave his child, Dennis, the middle name of Sigfred when he was born a few months after Sigfred died in 1948. "They kept the name alive," Kenny said.

Dennis, who lived in Esko, died in 2014, but information from his obituary eventually led to Kenny. Other relatives had slight memories of Sigfred, but they agreed that Kenny knew him best.

"He was my favorite uncle," Kenny said. He was a "nice guy" who gave a kid a thrill when he brought him a German belt as a souvenir from the war. Kenny still has it. "I really treasure that," he said.

In trying to describe his uncle, Kenny immediately turned to one particular story. One of Sig's brothers had to put down a dog and Sig volunteered to do it. He grabbed a shotgun and the dog and went off. Kenny remembers waiting to hear the gunshot. "Waiting and waiting." Sig eventually came walking back, dog in tow. "I just couldn't do it," Kenny recalled his uncle saying. For a guy who probably saw a lot of terrible things in the war, "he was just that kind of guy," Kenny said. "He was a goodhearted guy."

Niece Florence Ganter of Cloquet said Sig got lost in family lore because his younger brother, Roger, was killed after taking part in D-Day during the war. "They talked about that all the time," she said.

Sig died fighting a bout of pneumonia at the Veterans Administration Hospital in St. Cloud. He had gone there, Kenny remembered, after he was having hallucinations. He was found one morning barefoot in the snow and incoherent. They got him to the hospital in St. Cloud where, Kenny recalls, they may have found a brain tumor. His death certificate shows that he had pneumonia from the time he entered the hospital, and that a heart condition was made worse by it and he died on the13th day after admission.

Prouty is thrilled that the plaque got into the hands of a family member, especially one who remembered Sig so fondly. "I'm so happy," he said Tuesday.

What remains is the mystery of where the plaque has been for 70-some years. It had been at the salvage yard for a while, an employee there said, but details about when it was found are sketchy.

Prouty said it was unlikely the plaque had ever been mounted. Sig Johnson's grave marker, at the family plot at Hillcrest cemetery in Cloquet, notes his military service.

The plaque that was found shows it was "from friends." Kenny Johnson mused about it perhaps being created from people Sig hung out with at Jake's, and perhaps it had been hanging there for some time.

Anyone who might have a lead on the origins of the plaque or how it came to be found in a junked car and saved, email [email protected] or call 218-216-6292