LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — Just days before an EF-4 tornado tore through the Sunshine Hill neighborhood, longtime resident June Fisher had celebrated her birthday with a cookout.
"Monday was her birthday…she turned 74," recalled Paul Johnson, her son. "My sister met her at church for Mother's Day and I grilled out for her birthday."
The house Fisher lived in since 1976 is now a pile of rubble. Demolition crews spent Thursday tearing down what the tornado left behind. Johnson and a cousin made their way to her house early Saturday morning before dawn. He said he found his mother in her bed.
"All the walls were pretty much destroyed—it was like a house of cards, it all fell and stacked on top of each other," Johnson described. "Me and my cousin brought her out and waited for the coroner to come."
Fisher worked in a local bank for nearly thirty years before she retired. Her son reflected on how she always hung a colorful wreath on her front door. Two now lie on her mangled car.
"Mom had a wreath for about every occasion, and they were scattered all over the neighborhood," said Johnson.
June was the centerpiece of her family. Now her death leaves a void that no words can fill. "It's like a big dictionary with a lot of pages torn out of it now; there's no way to keep that—it's gone forever," Johnson lamented.
He knows exactly what his mother would tell him now. "She'd say not to worry about her but to be there and keep the rest of us together. Mom was the glue."
