1903-04 Volume 28 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

5o8THB SCROLL.west. He was engaged in railway, municipal and other kindsof work. He was associated in and had charge of some ofthe important and difficult engineering work in the west, andby his breadth of comprehension and ability to grapple withdetail he always acquitted himself in the most creditable manner.He attained an enviable success. In his last years hepaid especial attention to the development and constructionof large irrigation systems. But his magnificent constitutiongave way to the excessive strain of his work and his finlavisit home did not avail to recall him to resume his place inthe transformation of the waste places into fit habitations forhis fellow men.During his university career, those same qualities which inafter life endeared him to his associates and added so muchto his success, had asserted themselves with the same results.He was a leader among his fellows, always ready for a frolic,providing it was clean and innocent, or for good hard work;original in a marked degree in his conceptions and in the executionof his plans, he took a high rank in scholarship, andmade friends in abundance. He was a member of Iowa Betaand always stood loyally for the principles of the fraternity.THORWALD ROSS JOHNSON, MINNESOTA, '03.On July 12, 1903, Bro. Thorwald Ross Johnson, a memberof Minnesota Alpha chapter, was drowned while bathing inPickerel Lake near St. Paul, Minnesota. Two friends werewith him at the time, but as he sanksuddenly and without the slightestwarning, they were unable to savehim. He had told them that he wasgoing to float upon his back, and didso for several moments while theywatched him. While he was doingthis his head dropped beneath thesurface a trifle, but it was thoughtthat this was only an additional feat.Suddenly, however, without a soundor struggle, he sank to the bottom.His body was recovered some hourslater. It was thought that death resultedfrom heart failure rather thandrowning, as he was an excellentT. R. JOHNSON,Minnesota, '03.swimmer.Bro. Johnson was born in Hampton, Iowa in 1882, where