A. Esther Bronson

A. Esther Bronson, age 94 of Decorah, died on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at the Barthell Eastern Star Nursing Home in Decorah. Memorial Services will be at 2:00 P.M. Saturday, August 23, 2008 at the Multipurpose Room in Arlin Falck Assisted Living, Barthell Eastern Star Nursing Home in Decorah. Fjelstul Funeral Home is handling the arrangements. Anna Esther Theodora (Nelson) Bronson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 17, 1913, the third child and third daughter born to Harry and Amanda Nelson, immigrants from southern Sweden. Esther spent most of her childhood in Milton, a suburb of Boston. She attended public school there and graduated from Milton High School in 1931. The next four years were spent commuting to Emerson College in Boston, graduating in 1935 with a BLI degree (Bachelor of Literary Interpretation). The next year was spent teaching high school English in a private school in Cooperstown, N.Y. In the fall of 1937 Esther enrolled in graduate school at the University of Michigan receiving her master’s degree in 1938 in Speech and Linguistics. Professionally for the next four years she dabbled in radio, taught speech in the Katherine Gibbs Schools in Boston, New York and Providence, and earned credit hours in Speech and Library Science from Boston University and the University’s of Utah, Iowa and Upper Iowa. On May 31, 1941 Esther married Edmund Perry Bronson of Nora Springs, Iowa in the chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City. The couple set up housekeeping in Cambridge, Mass. Four children were born of the union: Edmund Cutler (Bing), Martha Ann, John Mark, and William James. Following World War II, in which Edmund served as an officer in the USNR, they moved from the east coast to the Midwest. Esther resumed her teaching career in 1956 teaching English in Postville, Iowa. In 1962, they moved with their two young sons to Lincoln, Nebraska. Here she was again teaching high school through the U. of Nebraska, but this time her students were living worldwide or on ships at sea. Teaching by correspondence was a new challenge. Her last professional assignment was with the Nebraska State Department of Education where she was the administrator of federal funds through ESEA. Edmund Bronson passed away in Lincoln in 1977. Esther stayed on there, busy with family, genealogy, writing and the Mayor’s Committee for International Friendship. In 1984 she moved to Decorah, Iowa where she was close to her only daughter, within a Scandinavian community and within reasonable distance to Minneapolis. She traveled extensively, not only through professional obligations but through the mere love of travel, enjoying Elder Hostels, cultivating friendships with Swedish relatives and professional contacts, and visiting sons in Wisconsin, Texas and Nebraska. Esther became a resident of the Barthell Eastern Star Nursing Home in Decorah in the fall of 2005 and passed away peacefully there on July 29, 2008 at the age of 94 years, 9 months, and 12 days. She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Edmund in January, 1977; her son, Bing in April, 2004; and by her two sisters: Helen Dean and Alice Kraus. She is survived by three of her four children: Martha (Wayne) Landt, Luana, IA, Mark (Pam) Bronson of Fort Worth, TX, Bill (Joanne) Bronson of South Bend, NE; daughter-in-law, Diane Bronson of Waterloo, IA; her twelve grandchildren: Dody (Mike) Dahlin, Jon (Sandi) Bronson, Darin (Jody) Bronson, Jill Nanette (Johnny) Syharath, Laurie Landt, Dallas (Rhonda) Landt, Travis (Sheri) Landt, Amanda (Ryan) Pollock, Adam (Kate) Bronson, Nathan (Shannon) Bronson, Heather Bronson, and Christy Bronson and fiance’, Mat Field; and her great-grandchildren: Aaron, Ian, Preston, Parker, Delaney, Madison, Malia, Morgan, Ashton, Anna, Zachary, Jordan, Dylan, Christina, Brooklyn, Braden, Kyla, Ryland, Adelynn, and MacKenzie. In lieu of flowers memorials may be given to Grace Episcopal Church in Decorah, Iowa.