Norma Lovell Johnston

Headstone GPS Coordinates: Unknown location

Birth: 18 April 1931, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Death: 06 December 1932, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: William Franklin Johnston, Helena Lena Whitney Johnston Branham, Infant boy Johnston, Wayne Johnston; Leslie Charles Hanby

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Patriot David Payne/Paine of Virginia.

Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standards.

Norma Lovell Johnston was born on April 18, 1931, in Seabeck, Washington, the first child of William Norman Johnston and Amber Kelso Hanby. Her birth came early in their marriage—Norman and Amber had wed just two months earlier, in February 1931, in King County, Washington. Norman’s mother, Helena “Lena” Whitney Johnston, was present for this milestone and signed the marriage record as a witness, showing her close involvement in her son’s young family.

Norma entered a family shaped by migration, labor, and loss. Her father Norman had grown up moving between Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington, working in logging camps alongside his own father, William Franklin Johnston. By the early 1930s, Seabeck had become an important gathering place for the Johnston family. Norman’s siblings were nearby, and Lena herself had relocated to the area, working as a cook and helping support her children during a difficult period marked by economic hardship and fragile health.

Tragically, Norma’s life was very short. On December 6, 1932, she died just weeks shy of her second birthday from tubercular meningitis, a devastating and often fatal illness at the time. She was laid to rest in Seabeck Cemetery, where several other Johnston children would also be buried within the next few years—a somber reflection of the medical realities of the era.