Esther Virginia Zendt

Esther, or “Gan” as her grandchildren knew her, was born May 20, 1914, in Indianapolis, IN, to Guy and Virginia Hoover. She was the fourth of five children: Lyman, Florence, Mary, Esther, and Robert. Devoted to her brothers and sisters and proud of their accomplishments, she helped both her dad and siblings after her mother’s sudden death when Esther was 19.

Esther attended Indianapolis schools, where she graduated from Butler University in 1932 and was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.
On September 9, 1939, she married Frederick Eugene Zendt, a graduate of Yale Divinity School, and they served pastorates in Fayetteville, AR; Ann Arbor, MI; St. Louis and Kansas City, MO; and El Paso, TX. After a break from the ministry in Albuquerque, NM, Gene Zendt took a pastorate in Farmington, NM. Their three children were Stephen Hoover Zendt, Virginia Zendt Abendschan, and Mary Eugenia Zendt who died at age five.

While living in Albuquerque, Esther attended the University of New Mexico, receiving her Master’s degree in Education and English while teaching junior high reading and English in both Albuquerque and Farmington, NM. After 22 years, Gene stepped down from the Disciples of Christ denomination, then moving to Sacramento where she taught at Don Julio Junior High School in North Highlands, CA. Following retirement Gene and Esther lived four years in Guadalajara, Mexico, and seventeen months in Bristol, England, leaving them with many happy memories.

Gene Zendt, 87, died in 1997; they had been married fifty-seven years. Esther lived in Sacramento, CA for forty-seven years. In 2011, she moved to Azle, TX to live with her daughter.

She had three grandchildren (Chuck and Christina Witta; Preston and Shelley Huguley; John and Sherry Abendschan) and eight great-grandchildren, all of whom live in Texas (Sage and Isaac Witta; Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate Huguley; Zoe, Ali and Lily Abendschan). Esther outlived all of her relatives, except for her two children, one sister-in-law Jane Hoover, as well as niece Marcia Davidson Opitz, nephews Stephen Phelps, Roy Davidson, Giles Hoover, Jeff Kealing, and their families.

Highly intelligent, a speaker of four languages, her sense of humor and endless curiosity about life gave her a fearless willingness to tackle all that life handed her. She is revered and loved!