Early Life
Samuel Johnson was the fifth child of Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr., and showed intelligence at an early age. When he was ten years old, his family moved from Buda, Texas to the Pedernales. On his family's Pedernales farm, he developed a strong sense of competition. In his teens he developed a desire to be "more than a farmer" and began attending a public school. However, at that time public schools required a tuition, and his family struggled to afford the payments. When the barber of Johnson City retired, Sam bought his chair and tools with a loan and began practicing on his friends to gain skill at cutting hair. Once he learned, he was able to pay his school's tuition fees by selling haircuts in the evenings. Unfortunately, he had to quit going to high school because of health problems, and his parents sent him to live on his uncle Lucius Bunton's ranch in Presidio County, Texas for several months. When he returned home, he had ambitions to become a teacher; however, the Texas hill country at that time had no state-accredited high schools and no colleges. He learned, though, that he could get a state-issued teaching certificate without graduating from high school by passing a state examination. In 1896, with the thirteen textbooks he needed to study for the exam, he moved to his retired grandfather's nearby home to study in quiet. He passed his examination and spent the next three years teaching in one room school houses throughout the hill country. He wanted to move on and become a lawyer, but his finances forced him to return home and work alongside his father on their family farm. Once his father became too old to work, he began renting the farm from him and working it by himself. After a few years of plentiful rain and no flash floods, he was wealthy enough to hire a number of farm hands and begin trading in cotton futures contracts in Fredericksburg, Texas. He was considered a very friendly person and became a popular figure in the area surrounding Johnson City.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr.
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