Heather Pearce Johnston was born on 5 April 1931 in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Her father was a Scottish Engineer by profession and her mother was a hatter/dressmaker from Wales. She was about two and a half years old when they took the ship back to Glasgow in Scotland. She started going to school there at the age of 5 and in the same year her brother was born. When she was six, they returned to Ceylon, where she continued her schooling. She took dance lessons and participated in concerts and was a very happy child. Suddenly everything changed. She was sent away to her father's brother and his wife. It was short-lived and she was sent with a Ceylonese taxi driver to her father's other brother and his wife. There they told her not to look for her father because he had passed away. At that time she also did not know where her mother and brother were and was too afraid to ask. Her aunt was very strict and treated her with little love. Soon after, she was sent to a convent. The Second World War had already begun in Europe and the Far East. Her brother joined her in the convent and they rarely saw their mother. The British women and children were then put on a ship back to Britain.

After 10 days they arrived in Durban. There they got the news that the ship that was supposed to carry them on to England had gone missing and was presumably sunk by the Germans. A few days later they took a train to Johannesburg and moved into a large house with her aunt and their children, as well as other refugees. The children started going to school there, but it was a very rough environment and the children had a hard time adjusting there. Heather and some of the other children were then put on a train again to a convent school (Convent of Notre Dame) just outside Kroonstad. She was very happy there and the nuns were very good to her, although also very strict. However, the nuns saw that Heather did not have a good self-esteem and gave her more responsibilities to improve it. Meanwhile, her mother became seriously ill and had to be operated on. The nuns reassured her mother and said that they would take care of Heather until she finished school and also university, should her mother not survive the disease. Her mother survived and she moved to Cape Town with Heather's brother. After school she did her nursing training at the Groote Schuur Hospital and after that also her maternity training in Johannesburg. So she later ended up in Ladismith, where she met her husband, Johan Uys (medical doctor), and got married. They had 4 children. She immediately started doing community work. She constantly fed hungry children and took them to the store to buy clothes when their clothes were torn. In 2003, her husband died and she moved to the retirement resort, Rosenhof, where she remained until her death. She was a remarkable woman, who had to fight her way out, after her bad childhood.

After her death in 2015, all her furniture was donated to Wardrobe of Love and Heather's Home was furnished with it, hence the name Heather's Home, a place of safety for traumatized children. Heather's Home (Safety House) continued to exist until 2018, after which the doors had to close, due to the relocation of the person who was in command. Several children have been cared for in Heather's Home over time and much has been built into each child. It was a place where children felt safe and could experience love and security.