Preacher Kid

Born in 1908, Esther Miller was the daughter of a Methodist preacher. She came of age in Depression-era Ohio and lived during a century of tremendous social, technological, political and cultural change. She was born into near-poverty in a small Ohio town. She worked and sacrificed to free herself from the hardscrabble life into which she was born. She tragically lost a child, outlived three husbands and rediscovered a lost love. She abandoned the religion of her childhood and found her own way in her spiritual life. She buried her past in order to keep moving forward. People were drawn to Esther like a magnet but she kept her most personal history a secret. The author, Kathleen Walsh, is Esther's granddaughter and her writing intertwines biography, memoir, and genealogy to capture Esther's life, her ancestry, the world in which she lived, and the story of the people she loved.