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Remembering Who Was Lost
Pam Johnson is the daughter of Robert Rafferty, the chef aboard the SS Fitzgerald, and was eight months pregnant with her fourth child in Fort Benning, Ga., when the ship sank. Though she would have loved to go home to celebrate her father’s life, she worried at the time that it would be too much for her health.
“I decided not to go home, and that is one of my life’s biggest regrets,” Johnson explained. “I left my mom and my half-brother to deal with it, but I didn’t know if I should travel from Fort Benning, Ga., clear up to Toledo, so I didn’t go. And I didn’t go to any services until the 25th anniversary, and that was because of Gordon Lightfoot. He talked me into going. That’s kind of a cool thing.”
Johnson was able to meet Lightfoot backstage during one of his shows. That meeting had a strong impact on her, leading her to attend services honoring her father and gain some much needed closure. Stories like Johnson’s remind the world that behind every cold count of a crewman who passed away in the Edmund Fitzgerald wreck was a family who were profoundly impacted by loss.
