Johnson

Kathryn (“Kay”) was born to Milbra Hightower Johnson and Herbert Cephus Johnson in Vernon, Florida. Her older brother, Herbert C. Johnson Jr. (“Coot”), and she were fortunate to have hard-working, enterprising parents and grandparents. They lived next door to their grandmother for a time, and Kay had access to a piano and piano lessons, which her mother and father both strongly supported. “Kay Piano” was an incredibly gifted, well-rounded pianist and singer. She played passionately until right up to her death. Her love of piano shaped her life and her world.

Kay was very glamorous and a natural entertainer. She played piano and organ (and several other instruments, including ukulele and accordion as well), sang in churches, choirs, plays, “senior follies” groups, even the San Diego Chorale Club, and many restaurants and nightclubs. She met at least two of her husbands while playing in nightclubs.

Her first husband was Sam Camerotas, a man of Greek heritage whose family had various business enterprises in the South, including a restaurant. That marriage was brief and did not produce any children.

Kay next married Prentice Jackson Custer (“Jack”), a very handsome career Navy pilot whom she met in Pensacola. Jack was raising his young daughter, Pennee, only 2 years old, when they met. Jack had served as an aviator/navigator in World War II. Kay fell in love with both Jack and his adorable daughter, and they wed in 1950. Son Prentice Jackson Custer Jr. followed in 1951, daughter Kittee Custer in 1952, son Michael Steven Custer in 1954, and son Allen Rockford Custer in 1957! The five children traveled around the country with their mother and father, following Jack to duty stations in the southeast in early days. Jack was then assigned to duty at Coronado, California, near San Diego.

From Southern California Jack was transferred to New Iberia, Louisiana, where he trained jet pilots and Kay joined the other Navy wives and families entertaining themselves and the naval community with plays and music. The family lived on a small part (6 acres) of a large Southern plantation and had lots of dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, and two ponies that were an absolute dream come true for daughter Kittee.

From there the family moved to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, where Jack attended the Army War College and was commissioned a commander in the Navy upon his graduation. As always, Kay was the center of any musical undertakings at school or among the military community, which included Army and Navy.

The family then returned back to the same house in San Diego, California, where the children resumed their earlier friendships. The Beatles hit the mainstream, and Kay appreciated the musicianship of them and numerous other rock bands. She added the music of the Sixties to her classical, jazz, Broadway, and nightclub repertoire. During his cruises, Jack had made numerous reel-to-reel tape recordings of dozens of record albums of every kind. These were played for years and years in the Custer home, giving some of the children a very large library of songs and lyrics for the rest of their lives.

Finally, saving the best for last, the family moved to what would be Jack’s final duty station: Hawaii. Kay had always been a gifted seamstress and knitter, and in Hawaii she indulged her love of the very colorful local fashions by making dozens and dozens of aloha shirts, muumuus, gorgeous flowered dresses, and “jams,” a style of low-slung shorts worn by everyone who loved the Islands. The entire family was a walking garden of flowered shirts and clothing.

After Jack retired from the Navy, he and Kay divorced. Kay immediately applied her substantial musical talents to numerous positions, playing piano and singing all over Oahu. She played at Shakey’s Pizza in Kaneohe, which happened to be next door to Honey’s Lounge, owned by the mother of the very famous entertainer Don Ho and where Don got his start. Kay also played and sang at Pinky’s Broiler, a local mid-size restaurant just outside the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station. The Marine base provided a captive audience for the glamorous torch singer. The food and drinks were good, the entertainment was fabulous, and Kay was getting a lot of good press. She was soon hired to work in a few large hotels with piano bars in Waikiki, including the Ilikai Hotel’s Grotto Lounge, and was invited to guest play at other piano bars when she visited them. With her sewing talent as well, she made striking outfits for her gigs in Waikiki, and she enjoyed this very much.

While working at Pinky’s Broiler, Kay had met Joe Cooper. He was in the Air Force, about to retire and planning to work in Iran during the oil boom there. When Joe left, Kay sold her home in Hawaii to move back to Pensacola, where her parents were aging, so she could spend much more time with them. After she arrived and settled there, she and Joe divorced.

Kay stayed in Pensacola 40 more years, taking care of her parents until their deaths, playing piano, and working for Baroco Electric Construction as a secretary. She met and married Lester (“Buddy”) McKinney, whom she had met through an office friend. Unfortunately, Buddy had a chronic illness, and after several years they divorced. Along with her office job, Kay continued with her music in church and playing for two “senior follies” entertainment groups right up until she became incapacitated at 89.

Kay’s son Mike had moved his family to Pensacola when he learned he had cancer. Mike survived cancer for several years, long enough to raise his children and settle his family in a lovely home near Kay. As Kay aged into her 80s (still working two music jobs and caring for her large house and rambling yard), she developed very close and loving relationships with Mike’s widow Stacy and all six of Mike’s children from two marriages.

Kay suddenly took ill in early 2018. Son Jack immediately flew to her side from Kauai, and grandsons Jason, Mike, and Nick helped take care of her in her home in Pensacola while she was so sick. Kay survived but did not completely recover. At 89, after a brief hospital stay with a high fever, she was no longer able to live independently. Her kids and grandkids helped her move into a lovely assisted living facility, Homestead Village, near Pensacola, where she had two pianos to play! And play she did. She happily found her own brother, Coot Johnson, living in the same facility with his wife, and they had many happy months together at Homestead.

A year later, Kay’s daughter, Kittee, found a gorgeous assisted living facility in her tiny town of Milton-Freewater, Oregon, just minutes from Kittee’s office and horse ranch. The entire family assisted with the planning and execution of Kay’s move to Oregon. In May 2019 Kay moved into her new home and absolutely loved it there. Again she had two pianos to play! She went home with Kittee on weekends to stay at the ranch and watch the horses and other critters. She just absolutely loved her home and her visits to the ranch.

In October 2019 Kay suddenly began complaining of pain in her right shoulder. In just a few short weeks the pain became excruciating, and the family learned that Kay’s cancer of decades ago had returned and spread so far and fast that there was nothing that could be done. She immediately started on hospice care to ameliorate the pain. Kay passed peacefully on November 29, 2019.

Kay is survived by daughters Pennee (now Kuon Hunt, husband Dale) and Kittee, and son Jack (wife Maiko); grandchildren Wendi Kuon, Ko’ae Hart (Kuon’s children); Kate Chastain, Rey Allen (Kittee’s children), Lehua, Kelly, and Karla Custer (Jack’s children); Stacy Custer, widow of Mike, and their children Jason, Dawn, Adam, Nicholas, and Jack Custer; Michael Custer Jr. (son of Sheri and Mike Custer); and Kay’s brother, Coot Johnson, and his beautiful daughters Tani, Stacee, and Christy. She was predeceased by sons Michael and Rocky Custer and by her parents.

She will be buried next to her beloved youngest son, Rocky, in Pensacola, in the spring of 2020.