When Gertrude Pearl Kerwin was born on 7 June 1896, in Turnberry, Huron, Ontario, Canada, her father, Benjamin Daniel Kerwin, was 28 and her mother, Ida Henry, was 26. She married William Archibald Johnston on 12 June 1926, in Clifford, Minto, Wellington, Ontario, Canada. She lived in Huron, Ontario, Canada in 1901 and Wellington, Ontario, Canada in 1911. She died in 1979, at the age of 83, and was buried in Howick, Huron, Ontario, Canada.