Pearl B. (Tharaldson) Johnson was born August 29, 1896, on a farm near Pekin, Nelson County, North Dakota. She lived there until 1907, when she was sent to live with an aunt in Grand Forks. While there she met and married Louis Johnson, a farmer born in Telemarken, Norway. Pearl was fourteen at the time of their marriage. Louis and Pearl began their married life at the Oscar Smith farm, two miles north of the farm of her parents in Nelson County. After her father died, Pearl and Louis rented her mother's farm for a few years. In about 1916, Pearl and Louis lived on a homestead in McKenzie County. Five years later, when iron polluted their farm's water supply, they returned to the Pekin farm. In 1947, Louis and Pearl moved to Minneapolis, where Louis managed the Gronna Memorial Home and Pearl served as the home's matron.

Louis and Pearl had ten children, four boys and six girls. Louis died January 14, 1963, while Pearl died September 20, 1979, at the Community Hospital in McVille, North Dakota.