ABILENE, Kan. — A father’s love for his daughter runs deep. Pam Johnson felt it even when her father, Robert C. Rafferty, was away working as a cook on freighters on the Great Lakes.

“We’d wave goodbye and watch the boat go off,” she smiled.

Rafferty spent his entire career cooking for crews transporting goods across the Great Lakes. Johnson said her father was never afraid of the work, even during November, when Lake Superior’s weather was notoriously unpredictable.

Pam, who is 73 years old and now living in Abilene, Kansas, was 23 years old when Rafferty filled in as the ship’s cook for the Edmund Fitzgerald’s final voyage.

Rafferty wasn’t supposed to be on board, but the regular cook couldn’t make the trip. He decided to take the job, knowing it would likely be his last before retir

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