Dorothy Marie Johnson, born in McGregor, Iowa, was the only daughter of Eugene Johnson (December 20, 1870 – December 13, 1915) and Mary Louisa Johnson (née Barlow, December 30, 1879 – December 28, 1960). In March 1913 her family moved to Whitefish in northwestern Montana.
She always considered Whitefish to be her home town, and later wrote a memoir of her early years there: "When You and I Were Young, Whitefish," published in 1982. She was appointed to the lifetime position of Whitefish's honorary chief of police.
It was while she was a student at Whitefish High School that she began her professional writing career: She worked as a stringer for The Daily Inter Lake, a newspaper published in Kalispell, Montana, fourteen miles south of Whitefish.
Professional life
Her writing career began to take off by the 1930s, when she sold her first magazine article to The Saturday Evening Post for the sum of $400. In 1935, her story "Beulah Bunny" was published and began a series of four stories. Her writing was temporarily sidetracked by World War II as she went to work for the Air Warden Service. After the war, she produced some of her best-known Western stories. These include "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1949), "A Man Called Horse" (1950) and "The Hanging Tree" (1957). These three stories would later be filmed.Between 1956 and 1960, Dorothy taught creative writing at Montana State University in Missoula, Montana (subsequently renamed the University Of Montana). Prior to and during her tenure, she wrote numerous articles and fictional stories for many different magazines. Many of her stories were based on interviews with Western old-timers, American Indians and characters she met during her tenure as secretary and researcher for The Montana Historical Society. She was also secretary/manager of the Montana Press Association in the 1950s.
In 1957, the Western Writers Of America gave her its highest award, the Spur Award, for her short story "Lost Sister." In 1959, Dorothy was made honorary member of the Blackfoot Tribe.
In 1976, the Writers again gave her a prestigious award, the Levi Strauss Golden Saddleman Award, for bringing dignity and honor to the history and legends of the West. In 2005, a 30-minute documentary film was made of her life by Sue Hart, an English Professor at Montana State University Billings The four-year effort was written and co-produced by Hart, along with producer Gene Bodeur, director Bill Bilverstone and film director Lansing Dreamer. Margot Kidder lent her voice to the effort. It was titled "Gravel in her Gut and Spit in her Eye," and was shown on PBS in November of that year.
Dorothy always prided herself on her self-sufficiency after a failed marriage early in life and stated that her epitaph would read "Paid In Full." Her grave in the cemetery in Whitefish, Montana, reads simply "PAID." She died November 11, 1984.
Alter, Judy. Dorothy Johnson. BSU Western Writers Series, #44. Boise State University, 1980.
Kich, Martin. Western American Novelists. Volume 1: Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Dan Cushman, H.L. Davis, Vardis Fisher, A.B. Guthrie, Jr., William Humphrey and Dorothy M. Johnson. New York; London: Garland, 1995.
Smith, Steve. The Years and the Wind and the Rain: A Biography of Dorothy M. Johnson. Steve Smith. Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1984.
