Obituary for Hester

HE STOOD AND STARED DOWN AT THE CURB. How many times, so many years ago, had he crossed this curbing of Glen Ridge Avenue on the way home from school? He was standing on a low shelf allowing him to see across the valley. Somewhat obscured now but most of Los Gatos visible. He turned and looked at the house behind him. Still much the same, he mused. The outside plumbing had been removed but the main features were still in place. Two smaller windows had replaced the single wide one in the front south corner. What a view he had from the room behind that window. It was the best bedroom in the house for viewing. He loved Los Gatos. A small town when he had lived in the house. Few people, relatively. It was now smothered in Silicon Valley.

Los Gatos High School was far different from the public schools he had attended in Los Angeles. He had thought about this from time to time and come to the conclusion that it was the quality of the teachers. Apparently there was something about teaching in a small town that produced a closer relationship, teacher with student. He noted that he could recall the names of the Los Gatos teachers, but couldn't remember any who taught his classes at Fairfax High or Le Conte Junior High in L.A.

It hadn't taken him long to make friends at the new school. Ladd Brown became his best friend and often picked him up and dropped him off with his father's hand-me-down 1930 Ford convertible.

And then there was Hester. She had told him she was a direct descendent of Roget de Lisle, composer of the French national anthem. Some girl, he thought, must have been all of 14 years; a charmer. He had found her interesting and attractive, mature for her age, carrying herself and thinking like an adult. He recalled, of course, he was of a tender age himself when he entered Los Gatos High School, and still had the Page Military Academy brace. After L.A., life in Los Gatos was like being in a kind of paradise, he remembered. There was always a freshness in the air. The climate and ambience were very near perfect.

His thoughts returned to Hester, remembering that as a couple they were more like pals, companions, than high school sweethearts. Rummaging through his memory, he believed their companionship was more intellectual than anything else. Young enough to be playful, too. He recalled with pleasure the now-unbelievable wrestling matches they carried out on the carpet in the front room of her home in Saratoga. There was no fooling around, he recalled. Hester just tried to pin him down. And no smooching – or whatever smooching is called these days, he said to himself.

He would never forget, he thought, the pleasure he had in Hester's company. There was dancing at the Colony Club in Saratoga, group trips to the City to dance in the Peacock Court at the Mark Hopkins. School affairs, the beach at Santa Cruz, calling in the summertime. On one excursion he had stayed in the water too long and missed the ride back to Los Gatos. Hester and a few other girls were staying at a house with a chaperone near the beach. It had gotten late, and he did not relish the thought of hitchhiking home in the dark, so he had gone to the house hoping his need for a place to sleep would be recognized and answered. It was. He phoned his parents – collect – and bedded down on the living room carpet. The chaperone gave him a blanket and Hester, after things had quieted down, came running out in her nightgown from wherever she was to sleep, bent down and kissed him goodnight, and ran back to bed. He was surprised, and a little stunned. He never mentioned the event to any of his friends.

It was all too good to last, he told himself. His stepfather had to move to Modesto for business, and hot days and hot nights were in prospect. The change was difficult to manage, but he had to do it.  Looking back, he had believed at the time he was moving from the heaven of Los Gatos to the inland hell of Modesto. Ladd Brown kept him informed. Hester de Lisle had entered Stanford University. Ladd was also at Stanford and had asked Hester to marry him. She declined.

Time certainly moves on, he mused. New people came into his life and old times were forgotten – but not his Los Gatos years. In his old age he considered contacting old friends. Ladd had died early on, so he began researching Hester. He had used Stanford's Quad yearbook, meeting via the internet some engaging people. He found she had married Sam Beard, a classmate, in 1942. Hester graduated from Stanford cum laude in 1944, gave birth to a boy in 1950, and died in 1991. Since she had been born in 1921, she lived 70 years and was married for 50 of them. He found she had lived in Carmel Valley and died in a Monterey hospital. He found she had been involved in a publication named Inside San Jose for a short period.

He discovered that Hester de Lisle Beard's name will forever be found on the web for her contribution to a book listed in WorldCat.org, in which she told of her great-grandmother's experience crossing the Great Plains.

But in spite of a diligent search, he found no obituary for Hester.

Hester de Lisle Beard sleeps in the verdant and shady Madronia, he knew, because she had been a resident of Saratoga. The cemetery is open to people of accomplishment or fame, he remembered, turning away.