Ester Turner

She was born January 11th, 1927, in McAllen, Texas, a daughter of the late G.B. and Martha Entz.

Ester was born in McAllen, Texas of first American-born generation German parents who came to the fertile Texas valley as farmers.

Her parents weren’t in Texas long before returning to the homestead area of Hinton and Hydro, Oklahoma where her grandparents had established their farms in the late 1800s. Her grandparents were part of a mass immigration of German Mennonite wheat farmers who had emigrated first from Prussia to the Ukraine to escape religious persecution.

During the Great Depression, Oklahoma farmers were hit even harder when the Dust Bowl hit the Midwest and many went bankrupt and left their farms. Ester’s family hung on, and she never spoke of the Great Depression as a time of suffering or unhappiness. Her mother described once that Ester had three dresses in her closet - one for church and two for school so one could be washed while she wore the other.

Her Mennonite relatives were very pious and Ester attended regularly, even playing piano for the white clapboard church in the countryside. She grew up a farm girl who loved racing her horse bareback as fast as she could, stopping just short of the top edge of the Redrock Canyon, much to her mother’s fright!

Another favorite activity of her early youth was family gatherings of close to twenty pairs of aunts and uncles and somewhere between 30 to 40 cousins. Family was everything to Ester.

One vivid memory Ester recalled was December 7, 1941, when at fourteen years of age, she sat with her mom, dad and two brothers in front of the radio, listening to President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The war waged on during her high school years when she waitressed after school and on weekends at the Hinton Junction Truck Stop and Café that her father owned. It was during this time that he bought a small airplane to give lessons and he taught her to fly as well. She was quick to add that although she could take off and fly the plane, she never learned to land it!

Ester graduated salutatorian from Hinton High School in 1945 just a few short months before WWII ended.

Ester attended Southwestern Institute of Technology in Weatherford, Oklahoma from 1945 to 1947. Artistically inclined, Ester was a member of the Brush and Palette Club. She was also in Delta Sigma Epsilon sorority and a Top Ten Campus Beauty.

She met her husband Bill Turner during her sophomore year after he enrolled following his return from serving in the occupational force of Japan. They married June 5, 1947 and moved to Lubbock, Texas so Bill could attend Texas Tech. Lubbock was where they settled down and began a family: Linda, born in 1951, Kandy in 1952, and Tim in 1956.

Ester was baptized in 1952 and the family attended Sunset Church of Christ where Ester began her lifetime love of teaching children’s Bible classes. Bill and Ester helped start the Greenlawn Church of Christ in 1959, hosting the very first Sunday meeting at their house. The congregation continued to grow by leaps and bounds, eventually meeting in the Lubbock Christian College auditorium for many years until they built a nearby building of their own.

It was heartbreaking for Ester when Bill’s job transferred the family to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1963 because she had to leave so many close church friends behind. Church was always family to Ester.

After only four years, Bill was transferred to Arlington, and the family placed membership at Park Row Church of Christ, later transferred to North Davis Church of Christ, and finally settled with the church family at Pleasant Ridge. Everywhere Ester worshipped she served Christ through teaching preschool age children steadfastly for 60 years only retiring when cancer stopped her at age 80. This she did year after year because she loved Christ and she loved children. It was never a duty for her, but instead the devotion of her heart.

Ester had the same self-sacrificial love, loyalty, and devotion to her own children and grandchildren. She taught by the example of her strong spiritual beliefs, kindness, and steadfastness. Ester was always the first to look on the bright side with an unflagging hope for the future grounded in her faith. She will be remembered for her perseverance in life, her faith, and the unrelenting love she showed to others.

Ester is survived by her two daughters, Linda Nesmith and Kandy Turner-Wulf; six grandchildren, Nicholas Turner, Clint Nesmith, Chad Nesmith, and Caitlin (Nesmith) Lemoine, and Zachary and Ian Wulf; two great-grandchildren, Matthew Wulf and Lyla Lemoine. Ester was preceded in death by her husband, Bill Turner and son, Timothy.