CORNER BROOK Boxing Day would have been Pauline and Lomer Johnson’s 49th wedding anniversary.
Sadly, the couple with ties to western Newfoundland died, along with three of their grandchildren, in a house fire that gutted their daughter’s home in Stamford, Conn. early Christmas morning.
Pauline, whose maiden name is McCarthy, was born on Woods Island in the outer Bay of Islands and was among residents who left during the government’s re-settlement program in the early 1950s.
She moved to Highlands in St. George’s Bay as a young girl and went on to study business in Montreal.
She met her future husband while she was working as secretary to the base commander at the Ernest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville. Lomer Johnson worked as an air policeman.
Upon their retirement from the base, the couple moved to Kentucky. Pauline had her own air conditioning and electrical company in Louisville, while Lomer recently retired from his second career as security director for Kentucky-based liquor maker Brown-Forman Corp.
They were visiting their daughter, Madonna Badger, when the fire — apparently caused by discarded embers near a front door — swept through the upscale home. Badger and another man who was also at the residence managed to escape, but the Johnsons and Badger’s three daughters — 10-year old Lily and seven-year-old twins Grace and Sarah — were killed.
Al McCarthy, Pauline’s brother, said his sister and her husband were wonderful people. In fact, Lomer decided to grow his white beard after he retired and had worked as a department store Santa Claus in Manhattan this Christmas.
With his round glasses, McCarthy said his brother-in-law was the quintessential Santa Claus.
His sister might as well have been Mrs. Claus, according to McCarthy.
“She was a real smart, loving person who was kind to all of her family,” McCarthy said in a phone interview from his home in Highlands.
The Johnsons had a summer home in Highlands that they visited every year for at least a month or more. On their way home for Christmas two years ago, Lomer put on his Santa Claus outfit to entertain children on the ferry ride to Port aux Basques.
McCarthy said the grandchildren were very close to their grandparents. Hearing the details of their last moments has been tough for the family to take.
According to reports, the Johnsons were trying to help get the kids out of the burning home before they perished.
“It’s a sad, sad affair and everything we hear about what happened makes it worse,” said McCarthy.
He has not talked to Badger yet, but said his own two daughters are with her, as is Badger’s brother Wade.
“We’re going to respect her privacy for a while yet, but you can only imagine how she feels,” said McCarthy.
Funeral arrangements have not been finalized yet, but McCarthy said there is a possibility the Johnsons may be returned to Newfoundland and Labrador.
