Old tombstone laid to rest in Dayton

DAYTON -- Three years after it was discovered by construction workers under a Sparks street, an old tombstone has been laid to rest in a new home: the Dayton cemetery.

The Historical Society of Dayton Valley held a ceremony Friday marking placement of the 76-year-old headstone in the historic town about 12 miles east of Carson City.

The event followed research by Sparks Heritage Museum docent Dick Dreiling that determined the tombstone was for Mervin Johnson, a member of a pioneering Dayton family who died in 1931 at the age of 37.

Dreiling said he located Johnson's grave in Mountain View Cemetery in Reno, but was shocked to discover it had a tombstone.

Dreiling concluded the original tombstone found under a Sparks street in 2004 probably was discarded after the family replaced it with a memorial headstone signifying Johnson's service in World War I.

Dreiling then contacted the Dayton historical society, which came up with the idea of putting the tombstone in the Dayton cemetery because of Johnson's ties to the town.

Using Census records and other documents, Dreiling learned that Johnson was born in Dayton in 1894.

He was one of nine children of Manley Johnson, who ran a stage and freight business out of Dayton.

Mervin Johnson eventually left Dayton for Reno, where he married.

He then moved to Loyalton, Calif., where he worked in the lumber industry.

He had a son, Mervin Jr., who is deceased, and a daughter, Beryl, who lives in an assisted living facility in Anchorage, Alaska.

She and her daughter were unable to attend the ceremony.

But several other family members joined the gathering to honor a man they never knew much about.

"I think it's amazing," Virginia Gardner of Reno, a grandniece of Mervin Johnson, told the Nevada Appeal.

"It's kind of good it happened because it brought a lot of us together in an interesting way."

Johnson is believed to have died from the effects of an illness that began during his World War I service.

Members of the Dayton Valley Veterans of Foreign Wars post presented the colors and played taps at Friday's ceremony.

Post commander Stan de Stwolinski discussed the hardships Johnson must have faced while fighting in Europe.

The possibility that poison gas or an influenza epidemic led to his early death were among the things he cited.