Addison County VT Archives Biographies.....Johnstone, Dr. Ernest Fenwick April 12, 1867 - April 7, 1938
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/vt/vtfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Kathryn Stauffer kinfolk52@yahoo.com January 9, 2013, 2:40 am

Source: His own publications, obituary & family information passed down.
Author: Kathryn Stauffer

Ernest Fenwick Johnstone was born in Waterville, Kings Co., Nova Scotia, Canada
on 12 April 1867 to John William and Mary Ann (Best) Johnstone.  Later he moved
to the U.S. living in Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont.  He was
a published poet having written the poem "No Vermonter's in Heaven."  A popular
poem with Vermonters. His two publications on poetry are "Book of Original
Poems", 1893; and "Selections from Johnstone Poems", 1915. The 1915 publication
contains his famous Vermont poem.

Ernest graduated from the University of Michigan in 1893 with two degrees, one
being an LL.M. Masters in Law and was admitted to the Michigan bar. He was
listed as a lawyer on his marriage certificate to first wife Edna (Gray) of
Boston in 1894.

It was in Boston that Ernest would discover the trade he would practice for the
rest of his life. He began an apprenticeship with a noted Dentist in Boston in
the art of "Extraction Dentistry".  After leaving Boston he set up his tooth
extraction trade.  It is said he traveled around with horse and buggy in Orwell,
Bristol, and a few other small towns in Vermont, pulling teeth. In later years
it is said he drove around in his Model T applying his trade with a tool box
full of teeth and extracting tools.

In 1894 Ernest and Edna were married. They had one child in 1896, Mildred
Sylvia.  Ernest and Edna divorced at some point and Edna and their daughter
Sylvia moved on to Covina, California.  Ernest married again in 1909 to Jessie
(Mossman) Phelps.  They had one daughter named Gwenyth.  Ernest died in Bristol,
Vermont on 7 April 1938.  He is buried next to second wife Jessie in Greenwood
Cemetery, Bristol, Vermont.  His obituary states that he died of a heart attack
at the Park Filling Station, where he had stopped for a few minutes while on his
way home from the post office.

His most famous poem:

"No Vermonters in Heaven"

I dreamed that I went to the city of Gold,
To Heaven resplendent and fair.
And after I entered that beautiful fold
By one in authority there I was told
That not a Vermonter was there.
"Impossible, sir, for from my own town
Many sought this delectable place,
And each must be there with harp or a crown,
And a conqueror's palm and a clean linen gown,
Received through a merited grace."
The Angel replied: "All Vermonters come here
When they first depart from the earth,
But after a day, or a month, or a year
They restless and homesick and lonesome appear,
And sigh for the land of their birth.
"They tell of ravines, wild, secluded and deep
And of flower-decked landscapes serene;
Of towering mountains, imposing and steep,
A-down which the torrents exultingly leap,
Through forests perennially green.
"They tell of the many and beautiful hills,
Their forests majestic appear,
They tell of its rivers, its lakes, streams and rills,
Where nature, the purest of waters distills,
And they soon get dissatisfied here.
We give them the best the Kingdom provides;
They have everything here that they want,
But not a Vermonter in Heaven abides;
A very brief period here he resides,
Then hikes his way back to Vermont."

Ernest F. Johnstone, 1915 

Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/vt/addison/photos/bios/johnston6nbs.jpg

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/vt/addison/bios/johnston6nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/vtfiles/

File size: 3.9 Kb