Esther Lillian Marie Johnson, daughter of Maria Elisabeth Smeds
and Carl James Amos Johnson, was born 1 June
1906 in Berlin, Coos County, NH, where she was subsequently raised in a home located at 232 Denmark Street.
Her nickname was Esta.Esther Lillian Marie Johnson
Esther Lillian Marie Johnson, daughter of Maria Elisabeth Smeds
and Carl James Amos Johnson, was born 1 June
1906 in Berlin, Coos County, NH, where she was subsequently raised in a home located at 232 Denmark Street.
Her nickname was Esta.
Because her mother was the one member of the Smeds clan to settle in New England instead of California, the Johnsons remained obscure figures to the others, and some particulars of Esta’s life story remain opaque. She continued to live with her parents into adulthood, perhaps staying a bit longer than she might have otherwise done out of concern that her folks would be lonely, given that the other youngsters, even her kid brother Walter, had moved out and Esta was the only one left. In early adulthood she worked for her father’s employer, the Brown Company, in the paper mill that supported the economy of nearly every household in Berlin. Esta was a food preparer in the comissary, and then toward the very end of her tenure, worked in the main office. Esta had such a lively personality she is often referenced in the social news sections in late 1920s editions of the monthly newsletter, The Brown Bulletin. On the negative side, she seems to have been so notorious for missing shifts on one excuse or another that many of the mentions of her in that publication cite her absence from her duty station.
In the early 1930s, for reasons undetermined, Esta moved to Detroit, MI. Perhaps she was following a young man she knew, but if so, the romance did not result in a marriage. Instead, she married Detroit native Kenneth Edward Alexander, son of Phillip C. Alexander and Margaret Hirst. He was an interior decorator employed by his father, a decorator contractor. (In that era, the profession of “decorator” was almost synonymous with “craftsman specializing in hanging wallpaper” and that is probably the type of decorator Kenneth was.) The wedding took place at the county clerk’s office in Detroit, witnessed by Kenneth’s sister Rhea and brother-in-law Frank Rockford. There is no indication of any Johnson-Smeds family presence or participation. Generally speaking, the extended family remained unaware of the union, perhaps because no offspring resulted, and its existence had to be rediscovered through public-source databases. The couple did not remain together long. In the 1940 census, Kenneth is shown having moved back in with his parents, and Esta is not an occupant of the household. The pair did not legally divorce until 1946, however.
Despite the disappointment of the unsuccessful marriage, Esta nonetheless developed a bond with Detroit and its suburbs and as near as can be determined, never lived anywhere else over the years to come. She married one more time. Her second husband was Sterling Osborn Ness, son of Urias Ellsworth Ness and Lura Elizabeth Osborn. Kenneth Alexander had been almost two years junior to Esta. Sterling was more than five years younger. In both instances, Esta pretended to be the same age as her spouse. The wedding occurred 26 May 1948 in Sterling’s hometown of River Rouge, Wayne County, MI. This time there were some bells and whistles to the ceremony, including the presence of Esta’s mother, a new widow.
One of Sterling’s part-time gigs, beginning in 1943, was to be the main Santa Claus at Demery’s Department Store each winter-holiday season. This may have been how he acquired the nickname Kris, as in Kris Ness, which when spoken sounds very much like Christmas. In late 1949, Esta and Sterling escorted Mary on a trip to see Mary’s surviving brothers and sister in Reedley, Fresno County, CA. The relatives there all subsequently remembered Sterling by his nickname. Not one recalled -- if they had ever been told -- what his true given name was.
Also coming along on that 1949 trip was Sterling’s daughter Margaret Lou Ness (1940-1995). The girl was the one and only child of Sterling’s prior marriage to Edith May Hayter, whom he had wed in 1937 and divorced ten year later. Being Margaret’s stepmother was Esta’s only experience as a mother. It was not a role that lasted long. Esta and Sterling divorced during the 1950s, probably early in the decade. He passed away in 1961.
Esta resumed going by the name Alexander -- an indication of how brief the marriage to Sterling was. What she did in the latter part of her life is not clear, except as noted above, she does not appear to have moved away from Detroit. She did however come back to Berlin for spell in the mid-1950s to care for her mother, who had entered into what was obviously her final decline.
Esta passed away in Detroit in September, 1970. She was survived by first husband Kenneth Alexander, who died in 1973.
Taken in the driveway of the farm of Alfred and Josephine Smeds, this photo is one of two surviving images that document the visit Esta and her immediate family members made to California in 1949. The visitors did not only stop to see the more distant relatives in Reedley. In 1928, Esta’s brother Walter had moved to California and was in 1949 a resident of San Mateo. Also, her half-brother James John Johnson and family had come west at the end of World War II and established themselves in southern California. Left to right, Fred Smeds, Bill Smeds, Grace Smeds, Ann Schellbach (a neighbor from a farm a couple of miles away), Carol Smeds, Margaret Ness, Lynne Smeds, and Marie Rautiainen Smeds.
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