Gertrude Esteros

Kerttu Esteros was born in Cloquet, Minnesota,^[1] the daughter of Gust Esteros and Selma Hietala Esteros.^[2] Both of her parents were born in Finland.^[3] She was a 4-H member in her childhood,^[4] and in 1933 she attended the National 4-H Encampment in Washington, D.C.,^[5][6] where she met Eleanor Roosevelt.^[7] She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1936,^[8] and earned a master's degree there in 1941. She completed doctoral studies in 1957 at Teachers College, Columbia University,^[1] with a dissertation titled "Art in Education for Home and Family Living".^[9] While she was in college, she worked with mentors Wylle B. McNeal and the Goldstein sisters, Harriet and Vetta, all professors in Minnesota's home economics division.^[10]

Esteros taught at the University of Illinois from 1938 to 1940,^[11] and at Lindenwood College in Missouri from 1941 to 1942.^[12] She chaired the campus Peace Coordinating Committee at the University of Illinois, and was a founding member of the Champaign County ACLU in 1940. During World War II, she volunteered with the American Red Cross,^[2][13] and served in New Guinea and the Philippines.^[14][15] In 1946 she traveled to Guatemala, and in 1948, she went to Finland with the American Friends Service Committee, to work with displaced families from Karelia.^[1][16]

Esteros was a design professor at the University of Minnesota from 1949 to 1979, and head of the "related arts" or design department.^[17] She was a distinguished visiting professor at Penn State in 1963,^[1] and president of the American Association of Housing Educators (AAHE) from 1967 to 1968.^[18] In the 1980s she helped develop the 1666 Coffman Condominiums, a housing complex for retired professors on the university's campus.^[19] She spoke to community groups, usually about home decor.^[20]

Esteros retired from the University of Minnesota in 1980. She was founder of the Goldstein Gallery on campus, and its first director.^[16] In 1993 she was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award by the University. On her 100th birthday the city of Falcon Heights celebrated "Gertrude Esteros Day".^[21]

• "A study of juiciness and flavor of standing and rolled beef rib roasts" (1937, with Alice M. Child)^[22]
• "Developing Intercultural Understandings" (1969}^[23]

Esteros designed her own home in St. Paul,^[24] and later in life lived in the retirement community she helped to plan,^[19] and died in 2016, at the age of 102, in St. Paul.^[25][26] Her papers are in the University of Minnesota Archives.^[27]