The start of this new year will bring many celebrations to look forward to. One of these will be the 100th anniversary of Dr. Robert Goddard’s launching of a liquid-propellant rocket and the start of the space age. There will be many articles written about the “Father of Modern Rocketry”, but what about the women behind this man who helped him? 

The Auburn Historical Society will be looking at the history of aviation in Auburn as well as the people who advanced that history. The first person will be Esther Christine Kish, who became the wife of Goddard. She spent a great deal of her life making sure the world did not forget what Robert Goddard had done to advance technology to the stars.

Esther was born March 31, 1901, in Worcester to August Wilhem Kish and Augusta Johnson both born in Sweden.  Esther also had a brother, Albert Walter, who married Beatrice D. Labossiere. The 1910 census had Kish family living on Fountain St. in Worcester with Grandmother Johanna Anderson and 5 other boarders. By the 1920 census the family had moved to Gates St. and Esther was 18 and working as a clerk. She studied at Bates University before she met Robert at Clark University where she was the secretary to the college president, Joseph N. Dinand. Robert was a physics professor and had asked Esther to help transcribe his notes. Esther was 20 years younger than Goddard, but that didn’t matter to either of them. They were married on June 21, 1924, at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Worcester. They took up residency at Maple Hill Farm, which was Robert’s ancestral home on Talawanda Drive in Worcester. Esther was a photographer and used that skill to document her husband’s early launches as well as stamping out brush fires and collecting pieces of the rocket after it landed. She was able to decipher his notes, kept his account books, did the sewing of parachutes used in launches and gave unlimited support to her husband’s dreams for the rest of her life. 

It was in 1929 that funds from the Guggenheim Foundation and the backing of Charles Lindbergh encouraged the move to Roswell New Mexico. There also were the reoccurring fires after the launches at Aunt Effie Ward’s farm that didn’t endear him to the neighborhood on Pakachoag Hill that could have influenced the move. While they lived in Roswell, Esther was part of the Roswell Music Association, The Women’s Club, the Shakespeare Club, and founded a book club. She also got her husband to join some of the activities in the area and take time away from his work and relax. 

Unfortunately, in 1932 the funding from the Guggenheim Foundation was stopped due to the Depression. This forced the Goddard family to return to Maple Hill and Robert went back to the Physics Department at Clark University. In this time his health began to be an issue and the doctors suggested they return to Roswell. The Guggenheim Foundation was able to support Goddard again thus allowing for the move back to Roswell. They were visited by Charles and Anne Lindbergh who were on their way to the west coast shortly afterward they moved into their new home. During the 1930s the Goddard’s entertained the likes of the Guggenheims, and officials from the Navy and Army, as well as those interested in seeing his rockets. 

Esther wanted her husband to fit into Roswell and encouraged him in group activities like singing and playing bridge, anything that would pause his devoted attention to rocketry. She did get him to take a vacation to France and Switzerland in 1938, and this helped improve his health. The 1940 census listed Esther as a housewife, and Goddard’s mother was living with them after his father died.

The Navy Department was interested in the military potential that rocketry had and in 1942 persuaded Goddard to move to Annapolis, Maryland to set up his machine shop and testing stands. Esther was able to enroll at John Hopkins University in Baltimore and finished her studies that she was doing before her marriage. Esther brought her mother to live with them to help take care of Robert and the house while she was away. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. The throat cancer that had started in 1941 finally took Robert on August 10, 1945. He was buried in Hope Cemetery in Worcester on the 14th which was the same day the Japanese signed the surrender ending WWII. 

Esther moved back to Talawanda Drive and, and with the help and support of her family, started to work on getting her husband the honor and credit he so rightly deserved. She organized his papers to get patent right and stop others from pirating his inventions. She worked with Charles Hawley who was a Worcester patents attorney and got 214 patents, of which 131 were posthumously granted because of Esther’s efforts. According to “This High Man” Milton Lehman 1965, Esther donated the oldest space-oriented artifact (1916) the Magnesium Powder Experiment Box to the National Air and Space Museum.  Esther traveled worldwide to lecture & receive many awards and honors bestowed on Robert as well as other public appearances including cutting the ribbon at the opening of the Auburn Mall in 1971, a large picture of which can be seen at the Auburn Historical Society’s Museum. Esther is also credited with being the first woman to receive an honorary degree from WPI, was active on several college boards, received her own awards and edited a three-volume work of Goddard’s papers that were published in 1970. She received a Doctor of Physics degree from the University of Maine in 1945 and a doctor of humane letters from Clark University in 1972.  Esther died June 5, 1982, and was buried in Hope Cemetery with her husband. 

This article is made possible by the Auburn Historical Society & Museum, 41 South Street. The museum is open Tuesday and Saturday mornings 9:30-12:30 and may be reached at [email protected] or 508-832-6856, www.auburnhistoricalmuseum.org or follow us on Facebook at Auburn Historical.                      

 – Helen Poirier