Esther Mortensen, 98 years old, died peacefully on Monday, December 11, 2017 at her home in Paramount Court, Turlock, California.
Esther was born to parents Alfred and Katrine Mortensen on December 19, 1918 in Merced County near the town of Stevinson, California. The youngest of two girls, Esther is preceded in death by her parents and her sister Mary.
Esther graduated from Hilmar High School in 1936, and continued her education at Armstrong Business College in Berkeley, California. In her professional life, Esther worked as office manager at Roy M. Day, and subsequently at Nordic Saw and Tool in Turlock, where she (partially) retired after a 25-year career. She continued to work part-time at Nordic for another five years, keeping a keen eye on the company’s bookkeeping and accounting.
A woman of exceptional faith, Esther was never timid about sharing the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. She lived with a clear priority for serving Christ and sharing His love through tireless personal evangelism. In fact, Esther was generally tireless in her pursuit and perfection of many things that characterized her unique and special quality of life. Roast beef dinners with snow pudding dessert, ebelskiver breakfasts served with 7 Up, the annual peach harvest from her immaculate back yard garden, and some of the cleanest windows on Marshall Street, to name just a few.
As a charter member of Monte Vista Chapel in Turlock, Esther taught children’s Sunday school classes for over 25 years. During this time she also served on the Monte Vista Chapel Visiting Committee, various missionary sending teams, and the Missions Committee—where she found opportunity to travel and work with missionaries in Minsk, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, Russia; as well as Scotland, Sweden, and Belgium.
If you spent any time with Esther, you knew that she lived a prayerful life and you could be certain that she was praying faithfully, with keen intuition about your specific needs, challenges and blessings. As she approached the end of her life, it was obvious to all who knew her that she was at peace and often excited to think about the promise of eternal life in heaven—always thinking about the power and strength of Jesus Christ’s love and the beauty and peace that would await her after her passing.
Surviving family members include cousin Hervy Sorensen of Hughson, California and his family—Carla (Allan) Merrill and Kristi (Troy) Viss of Turlock; and cousin Carole (Mike) Farrell of Healdsburg, California. Esther’s surviving family in Denmark includes: cousin Flemming (Asta) Sorensen and his daughters Susanne Sorensen and Christina Sorensen; and cousins once removed: Hanne (Claus) Vestergaard, Soren (Ketty) Sorensen, Lone Madsen, Else (Steen) Jensen, Holger (Christina) Jensen, and Christian (Stine) Jensen.
A visitation will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, December 15, followed by a Memorial service at 11 a.m. on Saturday, December 16. Both services will be held at Turlock Funeral Home, 425 N. Soderquist Rd., Turlock. A reception will commence, immediately following the Memorial service on Saturday, at Monte Vista Chapel, 1619 E. Monte Vista Ave., Turlock. A private interment will be held at Turlock Memorial Park at a later date.
