When Esther's parents married in Dover in 1859, her father was eighteen years old and her mother was seventeen. The American agrarian dream for men like James required large families in order to operate and sustain enterprises of farming and logging. James later became an ordained Baptist minister, but this avocation probably was unprofitable except for the religious experience and the occasional gifts of food.

Despite their hardships, James and Rebecca seem to have had a healthy and vigorous life together. Both died in 1916, after a marriage of fifty-seven years. Rebecca had done her part by producing the "Baker's Dozen" of children, almost one every other year until Esther was born in 1884, when Rebecca was forty-two.

Esther Newberry's life was very different from her mother's pioneer womanhood. After having studied music at Arkansas Baptist College in Conway, she was married in 1904 at the age of twenty to Maxel Hardy Newberry, also from Center Ridge. Esther did not emulate her mother's childbearing achievements. Her first child, Jarrel, was not born until she was thirty-three years old. A daughter, Rebecca, was born seven years later near Esther's fortieth birthday.

Esther worked outside the home with her husband. One venture was a traveling-tent photography studio in the Conway County area. She later worked with Max as he tried other prospects ranging from row crops to livestock to operating a service station and cafe. Esther and Max left Center Ridge in 1914, around the time of her parents' deaths, and lived in Prairie County, Arkansas, until migrating to California in 1944. They settled in San Pedro, where their son and daughter lived, and where Esther, at age sixty-one, died suddenly from a pancreatic infection. She was buried in Gardena, California.

Joan Esther Broadaway's notes for a church debate on the question of which sex was the superior leave the impression that she was a young, unmarried woman, until her closing remarks. They reveal also her gentle humor and lively personality that her son, Jarrel Newberry, describes in his genealogical research on the Broadaway and Newberry families.

Squachin my native modesty, which is natural to the weaker vessels of whom I am, whitch I feel impelled to speak of woman, a subject being I am a woman I have given much attention to.

Man my hearers, claims to be the superior of woman, is it so and if so in what and how much?

Was he the first creation. He was, my hearers, but what does that prove? The experience gained in making man was applied to the making of a better and more finer being of whom I am a sample.

God made man, but saw in a brief space that he couldn't take care of himself, so that was why we was created. Tho' seein' all the trouble we have I don't doubt it would have been money in our pockets if we hadn't been made at all.

Imagine my beloved hearers, Adam before Eve was created. Who did his washing! Who cooked his beefstake in the morning? He was miserable he was. He must have boarded out and eat hash, but when eve came, the scene changed. She had his slippers and dessing gown ready after tea he smoked his pipe in peace, but men, cruel, hard-hearted men, will assert Eve was the cause of his expulsion from Eden. That she plucked the apple and gave him half of it.

Oh, my sisters it's true, too true, but what of it. It proves firstly her goodness. Had Adam plucked the apple, if it had been a good one he would have gobbled it all down himself and perhaps taken her the core. But Eve, angel that we all are, thought of him and went halvers with him. Secondly, it was the means of a good anyway. It seperated them while they still had love for each other. Now I appeal to the stearner sex present tonight. Suppose all of you had been so fortunate as to win such a virgin soul as me, could you indure such charms as mine forever. Oh, I am sure if I had a husband he would bless Eve for introducing death in the world.

Matrimony thus far has been our only destiny. I am glad I have had strength of mind to resist all propositions leading to my enslavery. Once, indeed, I might have done so but the nearest accident in the world saved me. Once in my younger days when the blossoms was on the peach ear sleepless nights are the wrongs of my sex had worn furrows in these once blushing cheeks, a young man came to our house and conversed sweetly with me. He was my first beau and, O my sisters, had he that night asked me to of been hisn I should of been weak enough to have said yes. And been the mender of stockins and a washer of dishes for life, but fate saved me. He didn't ask me.

Last modified: Wednesday, January 30, 2008