Memories of a local man who pitched in the Major Leagues for 17 seasons are kept alive at the Norsk Museum in Norway. Museum President David Johnson says Si Johnson played in an era when baseball didn’t provide a full time living, let alone a wealthy lifestyle.
When it wasn’t baseball season, Si Johnson worked at the Norway Store. Customers sometimes saw other pro baseball players hanging out there with their buddy. After he retired from baseball in 1947, Johnson worked at the Sheridan prison and was involved in local hunting and baseball clubs.
Si Johnson played professionally for most of the seasons from 1928 to 1947. He pitched for the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, and Boston Braves. The last pitcher to strike out Babe Ruth three times in a game, Johnson admitted late in his life that he wished the Babe had gotten a hit off him.
Born in Danway, he lived in Sheridan after leaving Major League Baseball and went to work at the prison. Sheridan renamed its Main St. for Johnson in 1992. He lived until 1994 when he was 87.
Also remembered at the museum is a pastor who grew up in the country of Norway and passed through the community of Norway in LaSalle County many times. Rev. Christian Christiansen served at many rural churches in the area in the 1880’s and 1890’s, traveling from one to the other to deliver sermons on a weekend. Sometime after he died, he became known for helping the Allies defeat the Nazis.
It was still a war secret during his lifetime, so Christiansen never told anyone who didn’t need to know. Norsk Museum President David Johnson says Christiansen, in his 80’s, used what he remembered about the country he came from to show how to find and attack a German “heavy water” production site. He told where boats could get in and position troops for a raid.
Heavy water molecules contain more neutrons than those of ordinary water were used in the early days of atomic bomb research. Stopping the Germans from producing heavy water at the site may have prevented them from developing an atomic bomb.
Rev. Christian Christiansen