Edward Carl Johnson was born on a farm in southern Minnesota in 1880. He received his BA and MA degrees from the University of Minnesota in 1906 and 1907, respectively. In 1907 he became Assistant Pathologist in the Bureau of Plant Industry, USDA, in Washington, D.C., and from 1908-1912 he served as Pathologist in charge of disease work. Johnson accepted the position of Superintendent of Institutes and Demonstrations at Kansas State Agricultural College in 1912, and was the Dean of College Extension from 1915 to 1918. In 1919 he became Dean of the State College of Washington's (now Washington State University) College of Agriculture and Director of the Washington Agricultural Experiment Station. Johnson was Dean until 1945 and held the station directorship through 1948. He died in 1962.

Source: Edward Carl Johnson Papers, 1896-1959 (Cage 223) Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Washington State University Libraries; Pullman, WA.

Little biographical information is readily available for Ruth Daniels Johnson (1888-1970), Edward Johnson's wife.

Mildred Aldrich, a first cousin of Ruth Johnson's mother, Sadie Daniels, was a writer and editor for magazines and newspapers in Boston, then moved to Paris in 1898, where she lived on the Left Bank. She remained there for 16 years, working as a representative for American actors and producers, and counted Gertrude Stein among her friends. She retired to the village of Huiry, on the Marne River in the French countryside, in 1914. Instead of enjoying the quiet country life she had anticipated, she experienced life in the midst of a World War I war zone. She wrote several books based on her war experiences and observations, including A Hilltop on the Marne (1915), On the Edge of the War Zone (1917), The Peak of the Load (1918), and When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1919), as well as an unpublished autobiography.