Hester Sanford

Hester was the first child of Edith and Charles Ringling. She was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin during 1893. This was eleven years after the first Ringling Brothers troupe was formed. Hester was raised in Baraboo as her parents and their extended family built the troupe into the smoothest running organization of its kind in the United States of America.

At first the brothers poured their profits back into developing the circus, assuring its safety and adding features that would attract greater audiences-while the family members were provided a comfortable existence. By the time Hester was ten years old her family was enjoying prosperity and her mother and father built a large frame home in Baraboo. Hester said that her parents never allowed their children "to get the idea that they were wealthy" and brought them up to share their values. An article written by Lowell Brandle quoted Hester about her father: "My father was a very sympathetic person. He cared about people-not just mawkish sentimentality-but cared about what they felt and thought. It was always said around the circus that anyone could go to ‘Mr. Charley' and he would listen and help if he could. People today sneer at that quality, call those persons ‘do-gooders'..." -another quote indicated that Hester would ask herself what her father would do in situations, and act accordingly.

Hester and her brother were allowed to spend a month with the circus in the summer while on vacation from their studies. They traveled in a private railroad car with their parents as the show moved along. Later she attended Northwestern University and studied voice in Germany, planning a career in grand opera. Both of her parents were talented musicians, passing on their love of music.

Initially, Hester followed a concert singing career. She married Louis Lancaster and had two sons. Louis was killed in the First World War a few years after they had been married. When her parents began to build their winter retreat in Sarasota, a home for Hester and her sons was built alongside. Later she married Charles E. Sanford. Hester gave concerts, taught voice lessons and drama to children, and was very active in the developing theaters of Sarasota. In 1932 she produced and directed her own play, Pearls and Sawdust, in Sarasota. A photograph of the cast shows a circus setting and the names range from Owen Burns, Albree Freeman, Edna Swain Halton, Betty Purdy, Clarence Stokes, to Isabel Thompson, Holloway Kennedy, and Hester among the actors.

President of the Players for over six years, Hester was known for her dramatic roles at the professional theater, the Palm Tree Playhouse, on Palm Avenue until 1961. She continued to work with children and, in her later years, trained young musicians. Hester also sat on the board of directors for the circus. Hester's two sons also followed theatrical careers. Charles became a singer and played the French horn in the Florida West Coast Symphony. Stuart, a producer-director at the Palm Tree, went on to a film career in Hollywood.

© 1996 by Kafi Benz From Sarasota History Alive.

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Apr 30 2017, 18:25:31 UTC