SPRINGVILLE — Ann Johnson-Stone spends most days tending to her garden, where hundreds of flowers span across her front yard, the side of her driveway and across her backyard.
Gardening has been a way for her to find peace amid turbulent times.
Johnson-Stone, who was born in 1942 during the height of World War II, has vivid memories of an early childhood that was filled with fear. Living just 5 miles from downtown Manchester, England, hearing air raid sirens and running to the bomb shelter in her backyard was a daily occurrence.
“You wouldn’t think a child as young as I was would have an impression, but the fear of the adults, it was awful. Anytime the sirens went off, they’d panic and rush to the air raid shelter. That’s what I had to deal with,” she said.
One bomb even fell down the chimney of her next-door neighbor’s house, killing the whole family, destroying the house and severely damaging Johnson-Stone’s home with the explosion. The war had a “terrible impact” on her as a little child, and the traumatic experiences shaped her as she grew.
“When the war ended, it was like heaven on Earth … and we started planting,” Johnson-Stone said.
Ann Johnson-Stone’s favorite rose in her large English garden at her Springville home. She finds peace in her life through gardening. (Photo: Ann Johnson-Stone)
She would walk through the fields behind her house and adventure into the woods nearby, where she would search for flowers to bring home and admire the beauty of moss in ponds. At home, she and her mother started gardening.
“Mom and I planted roses and flowers, and it just warmed our hearts. It was so peaceful, and we had a little garden where we grew our vegetables,” she said.
Even though many flowers in England only bloom for a short time, the flowers brought Johnson-Stone comfort after the hard times of the war.
Johnson-Stone was offered a scholarship to attend art school, but she had her heart set on immigrating to Canada, which she heard wonderful things about from her aunt and grandmother, who had moved there prior. At just 15 years old, she and her family set off on a boat across the Atlantic, landing in New Brunswick before ending up in Toronto.
After a few more stops along the way, Johnson-Stone and her family ended up in southern California, where she attended college. Absorbing all of those “tremendously frightening experiences” while so young led her to have PTSD throughout her life, but it caused her to gravitate toward nursing, a profession where she could help others heal.
Roses among the thorns
But her life wasn’t all sunshine and daisies once she made it to America.
While living in Wisconsin with her husband and two little kids, she met missionaries and then got baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after moving back to California. Six months later, her husband died from a massive heart attack while driving, leaving her a single mother.
Ann Johnson-Stone has more than 100 rose bushes in her English garden that includes a water feature at her home in Springville on Tuesday. (Photo: Cassidy Wixom, KSL.com)
Johnson-Stone started attending various church activities in California and connected with Bill Johnson, a Walt Disney engineer who was also a recent widow. They got married in 1973, and after visiting Utah when her sons were attending BYU, they decided to move to Springville in 1999.
“When we moved here, this was nothing but a field,” she said about her current house and yard.
Johnson-Stone started working on her masterpiece English garden that now surrounds her house, which has a stunning water feature she designed and her husband built almost 26 years ago.
Even though Johnson died in 2012 from brain cancer, Johnson-Stone continued to find peace in her garden, expanding and changing it along the way. The garden boasts more than 100 rose bushes with dozens of varieties, 200 geraniums, various shades of lobelias filling in gaps between plants and six fruit trees from which she cans all the fruit.
“I retired at 73, then I drew back to the garden. I just love gardening. I love flowers, roses particularly,” she said. “I’ll probably do it until I die.”
Ann Johnson-Stone explains how to deadhead a rose bush in her English garden at her home in Springville on Tuesday. (Photo: Cassidy Wixom, KSL.com)
She adores creating designs in her garden, mixing things up so colors coordinate and adjusting locations so the plants can thrive.
She loves the results of gardening more than the actual work it takes now, she joked. Because of arthritis, a fused spine, neck pain and various surgeries throughout her life, Johnson-Stone pays some kids in her neighborhood to help with the more labor-intensive garden tasks.
But even at 83 years old, she can be seen walking through her garden, trimming down stems, pruning trees, and deadheading rose bushes while her current husband, John Stone, helps clean up leaves. The two frequently sit on their back deck, listening to the waterfall and enjoying the summer breeze as they admire the flowers.
“Some people think I’ve overdone it, but you know what, this is what warms my heart,” she said. “It’s comfort to me that I can’t describe. It’s really a pleasure.”
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