Carla L. Johnson; Lancaster City Clerk

Carla L. Johnson, who served as Lancaster city clerk since April, 1989, has died at her Lancaster home. She was 39.

Ms. Johnson died Monday of cancer, said her sister, Catherine Martin of Palmdale.

Born in Whittier, Ms. Johnson moved to Lancaster as a child and graduated from Quartz Hill High School in 1970. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business education from Cal State Northridge in 1979 and worked in the early 1980s as an instructor for the School of Business, American Language Training Program at CSUN and worked as an assistant manager for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.

She later worked in New York as administrative assistant for the Women’s International Professional Tennis Council and as associate director of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.

Ms. Johnson returned to California and in 1987 became deputy city clerk in Lancaster. Two years later, she was promoted to city clerk, the second person to serve in the position since the city’s 1977 incorporation.

She was a member of the Sierra Club and the Literary Guild and was an adult literacy tutor at the Quartz Hill Library.

In addition to her sister, Ms. Johnson is survived by her mother, Lottie Johnson of Lancaster; brother, Christopher Johnson of Palmdale, and sisters, Roberta Shirk of Palmdale and Becky Nichols of Walnut Grove, Mo.

Visitation is planned from 5 to 8 tonight at Murphy Mortuary, 154 E. Ave. I, Lancaster, which is handling the arrangements. A funeral Mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 45007 N. Cedar Ave., Lancaster, of which she was a member. Burial will follow at Desert Lawn Memorial Park, Palmdale.

Donations can be made in Ms. Johnson’s name to the National Cancer Institute or Catholic Relief Services Help-A-Child Program.