About Me

Ann Moulton Johnson

 Ann Moulton Johnson, world’s oldest blogger, that’s me! For some reason, I think there’s an audience in the bloggernacle for a voice that doesn’t discuss deep LDS doctrinal points or write about her cute preschoolers. I’m a published writer. Dialogue, Sunstone, Exponent II—and in a previous existence, the Ensign—have published my personal narratives, short essays and book reviews.

I grew up in the days when married women didn’t work outside the home except in a family business. I expected to marry and stay at home raising a family like my mother, aunts, and grandmothers, not to mention our neighbors in Provo and Pleasant Grove, Utah. I anticipated an exciting career as a movie star, ballerina, airline hostess or research scientist before settling into drab domesticity sometime before my 30th birthday.

First course correction: Once I met George, my dreams of a glamorous career dissipated like puffs of dandelion fluff on a spring breeze. I graduated from college with a degree in education, accepted a teaching position for a year (I thought) just to apply what I’d spent four years learning, and we married.
Religion classes at BYU convinced me that fasting and prayer would solve all problems and that it was immoral to ask your neighbor to help support your aging parents or a handicapped child.

Second course correction: Raising five children proved not all problems respond to fasting and prayer. Teaching in the public schools for twenty years—and one memorable year at a private school—convinced me that government is not necessarily an evil force. Life has a way of uprooting entrenched ideas which is a good thing—otherwise, we’d still be painting our faces blue and worshipping trees.

I now look forward to a dialogue with other women—and maybe some men— who have made or are making course corrections in their lives. I’d like to talk about life, marriage, family, church, and work.

George and I currently live in Bountiful, Utah within easy driving distance of three daughters and four grandchildren. I have written one as yet unpublished novel and am now writing about my experiences teaching at Utah State Prison–much stranger than fiction.

Links to Published Articles

“View from the East.” Sunstone. March 2011:13

“Willingness to Serve.” Sunstone. May 2009:10

“‘Real’ Stories” (review) Long After Dark by Todd Robert Petersen. Sunstone Mar. 2007

“Book Notes” (review) The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer (ed) Christopher Bigelow. Sunstone Jun. 2007, p. 64

“Changing Faiths Gave My Sons Hope.” Dialogue Spr. 2007

 

Non-linked Articles

 “Give Said the Little Stream.” Sunstone. April 2008:66
“On Being a Stepchild.” Exponent II. Summer 2002