A lifelong South Woodstock resident and her husband died in a vehicle collision in Mendon, Vt., on Monday, three years after a fire destroyed the couple’s home and belongings, which they replaced with support from the community.

Jean and John Panoushek, of Long Hill Road, were killed when their Toyota RAV4, traveling westward on Route 4 in Mendon, “crossed the center line” and collided head-on with another vehicle, Vermont State Police reported in a news release.

The two passengers in the other vehicle, a 79-year-old man and a 74-year-old-woman, both of Stockbridge, Vt., were transported to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon with “critical ” injuries, according to police.

The Panousheks were pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Neither of the deceased vehicle occupants were wearing seat belts. Road conditions were dry, the weather was warm and clear and the cause of the crash remains under investigation, police said.

The Panousheks’ home on Long Hill Road, near the house where Jean (Fullerston) Panoushek grew up, was destroyed in April 2020 when the flames from a cooking pan the couple was trying to douse ignited leaves and branches and the blaze then spread to their home, according to a news story in the Vermont Standard newspaper at the time. Several pets perished in the fire, the newspaper reported.

A fundraising campaign following the 2020 fire helped the Panousheks to get back on their feet and move into a new manufactured home, which is located on a hill in the woods across the road from a sugaring barn on Long Hill Road about 1 mile into the heavily wood area from Route 106.

Their son, Stephen Panoushek, a manager at Woodstock Farmers Market, declined to comment when reached by phone Tuesday.

As news spread Tuesday of the tragic accident, the public Facebook profiles of Stephen Panoushek and his sister, Stephanie Nakamura, received an outpouring of grieving comments from friends.

The Panousheks lost their son-in-law, Ty Nakamura, in a fatal car crash in Mendon, Mass., on Christmas Eve in 2008, according to an online obituary and news accounts.

Jean Panoushek was the daughter of Gladys Fullerton, who grew up in South Royalton before moving to South Woodstock and who continued working until she was 90 years old — 40 of those years at the Kedron Valley Inn. Fullerton died in 2007 at age 91.

The Fullerton family has deep roots in South Woodstock — a wooden sign on a leaning wooden pole in the shape of a cross on Long Hill Road says “Fullerton Cemetery” on the crossbar.

John Panoushek at one time worked for the town of Woodstock’s highway department.

Curt Barr, a neighbor of the Panousheks, said outside his home on Tuesday that John Panoushek later worked at the Woodstock Country Club and that Jean Panoushek had also worked at the Cumberland Farms convenience market in Woodstock, where her mother had also worked.

Jean Panoushek was remembered and highly praised in multiple Facebook posts Tuesday for the loving care she provided to children at the Woodstock Christian Child Care Center.

Barr said the Panousheks “were private people who kept to themselves but will be sorely missed,” remembering how neighbors in the secluded area of South Woodstock where the Panousheks lived pitched in to help them set their new home in place after the fire.

“A lot of people donated time and equipment,” Barr said. “They were good neighbors. We’re all a pretty tight-knit group around here.”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

CORRECTION: Gladys Fullerton, the late  mother of Jean Panoushek, grew up in South Royalton. The town where Fullerton grew up was incorrectly stated in a previous version of this story.