13 Scouts Fulfill Vow, Become Eagles
Years ago, well before Aaron Johnson was born, his grandmother, Pearl Patterson, made a solemn promise inspired by love for her husband: All of their grandsons would be Eagle Scouts.
It was a tribute to the memory of her deceased husband, Pat, who had dedicated much of his life to helping boys in the Scouting program. And Pearl Patterson’s sons and daughters knew better than to question the edict.
On Sunday, Aaron, the youngest of the Pattersons’ 13 grandsons, achieved that rank--just as his 12 cousins and brothers did before him.
Pearl Patterson, now 91, was there to see it.
“It’s very, very thrilling to me, to see them all so wonderful and doing such wonderful things,” Patterson said while readying for the ceremony at which Aaron, 18, finally discharged her sworn obligation. “My husband would be very proud of the family, I promise you. And he probably knows all about it now too.”
If ever there was a Scouting family, it is the extended Patterson clan. The tradition began with Pat Patterson, a teacher in Montpelier, Idaho, and himself an Eagle Scout, who shepherded hundreds of youths through the program.
In 1952, he received the Silver Beaver Award, one of the highest honors given by Boy Scouts of America, for lifelong service to youth.
He died 40 years ago of leukemia, at age 65.
His widow vowed that their grandchildren would be raised on tales of his Scouting prowess.
“We all knew they had to be Eagle Scouts,” said DeEtte Reed, one of the Patterson daughters, of the next generation of boys. “They were expected to get their Eagles. Dad would have wanted it. Mom wanted it. There was no question of whether or not it would happen.”
Happen it did. First Kendall (now 40), then Reed, Blaine, Kirk, Glade, John, Jeremy, Mark, Steven, Douglas, Brian, Brent--and, finally, Aaron.
All grew up to the cadence of Scouting mottoes and Scouting creeds, of merit badges and camping and community service. And they learned now just from their fathers or from Scout masters; they learned too from Grandma.
For most of the boys, childhood was filled with hikes with Grandma in the Utah hills where all but Aaron’s family lives. For Aaron, who grew up in Tustin and graduated in June from Foothill High School, Grandma flew out and took him hiking in the Sierras. All the grandsons learned that if they had trouble getting a merit badge Grandma would help them. There was nothing she’d rather do.
“Part of what was pushing me to get it was Grandma, all that it meant to her,” Aaron Johnson said of the rank of Eagle Scout. “I knew all 12 of her grandsons had gotten it, and I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t make it. It was a lot of pressure. And some people at school would say things like, ‘Oh, you’re still a Boy Scout?’ But I really wanted it.’ ”
On Sunday the clan gathered at the Johnson’s ranch-style home, eager to show off the 21 merit badges earned by the youngest grandson, a member of Boy Scout Troop 1042. They told all about the Eagle Scout project Aaron spent much of his senior year working on: designing and building a storage shed for a Santa Ana food shelter with wood and other materials he raised the money to buy.
“I wanted to do something that would be hard work, and in the end would be something that helped someone,” Aaron said.
Those words could serve as a motto for this family, all as dedicated to each other as they are to their Mormon faith. The boys have their Scouting, while the girls have community service groups organized by their church.
Overlaying it all is a family structure so tight that Jeremy Johnson, 24, who was married Saturday, took time off from his honeymoon to watch Sunday as his younger brother became an Eagle Scout.
It makes Pearl Patterson proud. “I have the most wonderful family in the world,” she said. “I don’t mind if I say so. The great grandsons will be Eagle Scouts too. I know they will.”