The History of the Founders of the Rescue Mission

Gustaf Adolphus Johnson was the baby of 13 children born to an affluent Swedish family in 1897.

The son of a well-known architect, Gus led a rather sheltered existence amid servants and tutors and a houseful of older brothers and sisters. He was five years old when his mother died. By the age of 10 he had already established a reputation for mischief. When the city offered a bounty for rat’s tails, he followed the city employee to see where the tails were being buried so that he could dig them up and collect the bounty again. Digging was easier than catching live rats, he explained when the officials became suspicious and came to his father to complain about his entrepreneurial activities.

He was bright, but undisciplined. After being expelled from the university, his father urged him to accept a commission in the Swedish Navy. His ship was sent to Russia at a time of great political unrest. Instead of curbing his son’s appetite for adventure, the time in Russia had the opposite effect. His father then “encouraged” his rebellious son to go with a cousin to America. There was an uncle in Iowa with a large farm who might be able to get him to “settle down and make something of himself.”

Gustaf came to America, but did not go to the uncle’s farm in Iowa. He went to New York and then on to Chicago and began running with a “fast crowd.”

He served with distinction in the Marines. He became a naturalized citizen. He was a big man and when he finished his tour of duty it was easy for him to get work as a “strong arm” or “bouncer” in bars and brothels. His desire for more money led him to a brief career of robbing banks and a series of “stick-ups.”

Eventually daily drinking became a regular part of his life, but even criminals need to be sober. In a drunken brawl, he knifed another man and awoke the next day to find himself in jail. The injured man did not die and soon Gus was out and back on the streets.

The next fifteen years he spent in and out of prison, drinking more and more. He was no longer a young man. In his forties, he looked like thousands of others on Skidrow—broken, dirty and all used up.

“There is no honor among thieves.” One night the bottle gang was standing in a huddle. “One by one they looked at my shoes,” he said “Finally, without a word, I went around the corner to sell them in order to buy one more bottle. When I got the bottle of cheap wine in my hands, I didn’t go back to my friends. I went the other way and settled in an alleyway to drink and to forget.”

It was on that same night he went to the Chicago United Mission. A fight broke out and the big Swede was put out of the Mission. Afterwards, unbeknownst to Gus Johnson, one of the Christians asked if those at the Mission would stop the service and pray for the big angry Swede they had to put out of the Mission.

The next night, Gus came back to the Mission. Less violent and more hungry, he hoped they would let him in and give him something to eat. He didn’t listen to the hymns or the testimonies or the sermon. He’d heard it all before. He just wanted it to be over so he could eat and maybe “if he was lucky”, get a bed for the night.

As they played the hymn of invitation, a young seminary student came up to him and said “Jesus loves you.” “Nobody loves me,” said Gus as he pushed the young man away. “Jesus loves you,” repeated the young man as he put his arms around the angry, drunken man. That night Gus Johnson traded in a life of violence and betrayal and booze for a new life of hope and grace and redemption. It was the third day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-two when Gus Johnson became a Christian and everything changed.

The time in the armed services had been hard, doing “time” in Joliet, the maximum security prison had been difficult and life on the street had been rough, but the next two years were the greatest challenge of all. Gus was no longer accepted as a part of the old gang from the street and the Christians were still waiting to see if he would fall back into his old life style. He was very lonely.

Seeing his struggle, the Mission Director’s wife, Mrs. Leonard (Frances) Hunt, invited him to come to their home for lunch. The Hunts had a family that included small children. While she was trying to prepare lunch, Mrs. Hunt asked Gus to hold the baby. When she returned to the dining room a few minutes later she found Gus in tears. Mrs. Hunt did not know what to do. She offered to take the baby from his arms, but with tears running down his face he asked, “Do you think I could ever have a little baby like this one?” he asked. Mrs. Hunt paused for a moment and then gave an unexpected response, “I don’t know what God has in store for you Gus, but let’s just take a moment right now and pray. God wants you to have the desire of your heart. So we will pray that if it’s in God’s will, that one day you will have a little one just like this of your very own and if it is not God’s will that God will change the desire of your heart. “

Gus began to pray specifically for a family. He prayed that if it were God’s will he would be led to someone who could love him and love mission work. He prayed very specifically that God would send him a wife. He added in his prayers that it would be good if she had some musical ability since he had none, that she would be young enough to have children and that it would be alright with him if she were pretty.

One Sunday afternoon, as he finished giving his testimony in the cellblock at Cook County Jail, Gus heard an organ playing. The music was coming from a little pump organ which was being wheeled around the corridors of the jail. At the organ sat a young girl with dark brown hair and a complexion so perfect, that her nickname was “Peachy.” Gus raised his eyes toward heaven and said “Thank You Lord.”

He asked if he might escort her to her home following the jail service. She agreed to ride home on the street car with him. On the way home they talked of many things. Finally, he turned to her and said, “How much money does it cost to get married in America?” She thought it was a strange question, but she answered “At least a thousand dollars.” “I have that much saved,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

She thought he was joking. He assured her he was not.

When they arrived at her apartment building, she invited him in to meet her mother. As he was leaving he asked if he might have the picture of her that was on the coffee table. When she said yes, he asked if she would accompany him downtown the next day to buy a frame for the picture and have lunch at Marshall Fields. Again she agreed.

The next day they rode “The El” down to Chicago’s “Loop” to buy the frame. After buying the frame, they walked along window shopping and talking. He paused in front of the jewelry store and asked her opinion about the diamonds on display. He pointed to one that cost $40. She said it was nice but she liked the one that cost $150 more. He asked if she would like to go in and buy the one she had chosen. She still didn’t really believe this man she had met the day before was serious, but she followed him into the jewelry store. Eight days later (June 6, 1945) they were married.

During the next three years they continued to volunteer at a host of Chicago Rescue Missions and in the jails. They opened a small soda shop and, much to everyone’s surprise, seemed to be very happy.

One day, Lois’s father Fred attended a Christian Businessman’s Luncheon at a downtown hotel. He heard an evangelist speak about the need for more rescue missions. The evangelist specifically made a plea for a place called Roanoke, Virginia, which had a city market area near the railroad station where there were large numbers of homeless men on the street.

Fred Ingersoll had heard enough. He asked the evangelist to write down the name of the town that needed a mission on the back of an envelope. That night the Johnsons and the Ingersolls and some of their Mission friends gathered around the diner table to talk and pray about the establishment of a rescue mission in Roanoke, Virginia.

Within a matter of weeks, arrangements were made for Gus and Lois to go to Roanoke, Virginia to start a new rescue mission there. All of their friends gave a huge party, held a special prayer meeting for them and put them on a train bound for Roanoke. They arrived in Roanoke, July 1, 1948.

The evangelist had told them that there was a building to house the Mission and they could live in the 7-room apartment on the second floor.