This was not the first , nor will it be the last update to this site in a long-shot (pun intended)

Please feel free to enter text, fact check my chronicle , spelling or comment on events or dates you may be familiar with as I slowly stitch this remarkable story together. I will weave this eventually with your submitted photographs, and stories of each segment of her life.

Thanks, and visit again soon as new (old ) photos and stories arrive daily!)

Kris Williams

She began really enjoying the country life, here, and learned to fish, preserve foods , and cook while here. Her Aunts Florence-Miller-Crawmer, and Elsie-Miller-Lightall would live nearby, and filled the void left by her mothers passing.

She became a beautiful young woman while in California, and attended school socials, as well as all Family Functions.

The camera would always be present, Esther would always be a willing subject, even though she sometimes had a lot on her mind. Sad and challenging life experiences would await her at this time, a time she would be at her most most prolific as a writer and poet. Her mother Bernice would die at the early age of 43, and rests in the old brethren cemetary west of town. She grew close to another family there in the wood colony , the Brown's.
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"Her Life" Section)

This photo of Esther and her sister Charlene, was taken about the time she would have been first living in California with Bernice and her father Sam Miller.

Upon seeing this picture for the first time my father, Esthers husband Neil, exclaimed "Now THAT's the little girl that used to peek around the buildings where I used to work for her Grandpa Sam Miller!"

Neil, then a teenager and all of 100 pounds soaking wet, would work for Sam knocking almonds for Sam's 18 acre property, out in the wood colony area.


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She collected poetry for a scrapbook, she kept with her own original poetry, ryhmes, riddles, jokes and drawings.

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At nine, She, her Mother, Charlene and some of her mothers family moved to the Modesto California area in
the Wood Colony area on the west side of town, where she attended the Old German Baptist Church on Rumble
Road and Hart Ransom School.

(a school that Genise Williams, My wife attended wihile living on shoemake road in the 60's)

She was often featured in other photos, like here in the center in front of this family group portrait.

She seems to have been restrained by her aunt! ( Elsie-miller-lightall)

(Miller family picture taken 1936 grandpa Sam and grandma Amy Miller. Elsie is standing behind Esther, while Bernice is holding Charlene)

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Early in her life, she could be seen with golden ringlets and bows in her hair, always smiling!

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The photographic equipment of that era would normally be prone to miss motion, and loose emotion as people could be expected to "freeze" "say cheeze" , But you will see gallery pics of her that magnify her personality.

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Please feel free to enter text, fact check my chronicle , spelling or comment on events or dates you may be familiar with as I slowly stitch this remarkable story together. I will weave this eventually with your submitted photographs, and stories of each segment of her life. 

I didn't run across many, if any photos of her with toys, or with dolls, but always seeming to prefer pets and here, living dolls!

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She seemed far from a sheltered life as she is dressed up here and "out on the town"

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"Her Life" Section)   

Whoever in this family was so taken with her and with photography? Was it her Father? Her Mother?

She would often be featured alone and was more than happy to "mug" for the camera!

(Esther at 4 , at Martha Kennedy's home, Illinois,  waiting dinner May 1934) 

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I can't even imagine trying to get film , or to get photos developed in the 1930's. These are probably only a small sample of her parents love for Esther and for photography.

Esther is pictured here at 10 1/2 months old

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Her parents used their camera more than modern families!

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Esther, it seemed, would have a little of this character, and have it captured as well in photos. This family regularly had formal portraiture done as you see above, as well as a great deal of "moments" that you can see are not typical of others in the scenes depicted.

It is as if someone picked up on, and was amused by her antics and her joyfull character.  

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Her Parents, Kenneth and Bernice Miller Long, a German Baptist family who worked a family farm there. Bernice was from the Miller family you will see in later photos. 

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 "Her Life" Section) 

Esther was born on August 21, 1930 in Haldane Illinois. This house belonged to her Grandfather, who is probably the figure you see in the doorway. Her fathers house was a single story house, just behind this one, and seen in other photos of Esther at a young age. Neil, her husband and Esther visited there after they were married.
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"Her Life" Section)

Esther M. Williams passed away peacefully, after living a happy, loving, 81

 years, surrounded by loving family, in her home of 57 years on February 26th.

Esther was born on August 21, 1930 in Haldane Illinois, to Kenneth and Bernice

Long, a German Baptist family who worked a family farm. Then at nine,

moved to Modesto California, with her mother where she attended the Old

German Baptist Church on Rumble Road, Hart Ransom School, and Modesto

High Schools. She met her husband of 57 years, Neil Williams in Modesto and

enjoyed camping and fishing with him, and the four children she raised in their

north Modesto home.

She also enjoyed quilting, knitting, needlepoint, sewing, gardening, baking,

preserving foods and joined Neil in the Tube Testers CB Radio Club in the 70's.

Esther and Neil are members of the Davis Park Church of Christ. She was a

joyful wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and Child of God. We

were all truly blessed, by her life and her love.