Esther Nelson Karn
A smiling white woman with her cheek resting on clasped hands, and a rose in her dark hair
Esther Nelson Karn, from a 1908 publication
BornAugust 1860
New Philadelphia, Ohio
DiedApril 13, 1936
Allen County, Indiana
Occupation(s)Poet, bookkeeper, businesswoman

Esther Nelson Karn (August 1860 – April 13, 1936) was an American poet and business owner, based in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Early life

Esther (or Hester) Nelson was born in New Philadelphia, Ohio, and raised in DeKalb County, Indiana, the daughter of Hugh Nelson and Lucinda Davis Nelson. She trained to teach at Hicksville High School.[1] She also attended courses at the Detroit School of Journalism and the De Silva School of Oratory in Fort Wayne.[2]

Career

Nelson taught briefly before she married. After she married, she worked as a bookkeeper, and wrote poetry.[1] "The authoress is thoroughly conversant with the ways of nature and has the pleasing faculty of creating within the reader a mood essential to the fullest enjoyment of her theme," according to one reviewer in 1925.[3] She gave public readings of her poems, sometimes with musical accompaniment,[4][5] and was a member of the Order of Bookfellows, a Chicago-based writers' organization.[6] She also wrote song lyrics.[7] During World War I, she wrote topical lyrics about defeating the Kaiser.[8]

In widowhood after 1904, and after her brother and business partner died in the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919,[9] she continued to run the family's piano store and sheet music business in Fort Wayne, into the early 1930s.[10][11]

Publications

  • Snow-Flakes (1900)[12]
  • Violets (1904)[10]
  • Wild Roses (1915)[13]
  • Lure of the Wilds (1925)[14]

Personal life

In 1882,[15] Esther Nelson married Samuel A. Karn, who was a sales representative for a musical instrument manufacturer.[1][10] They moved to Fort Wayne and opened a music store. The S. A. Karn Music Company was incorporated as a business in 1902, with Esther Karn as one of the directors.[16] Her husband died in 1904.[15] She died in a hospital in Allen County, Indiana in 1936, from cancer, at the age of 75.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rice, Alonzo Leora (1908). Some Indiana Writers and Poets. Teachers Journal Printing Company.
  2. ↑ "Indiana Authors and their books, 1816-1980". Indiana University Digital Library Program. p. 175. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  3. ↑ "Lure of the Wilds". Forest and Stream. 95 (10): 608. October 1925.
  4. ↑ "Esther Nelson Karn's Recital". The Fort Wayne News. 1906-02-10. p. 8. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Esther Nelson Karn Recital". The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. 1923-06-24. p. 22. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ "Just Ourselves". The Step Ladder. 2 (2): 24, 28. January 1921.
  7. ↑ "Music Received". The Editor. 5 (6): 194. June 1897.
  8. ↑ "New 'Yankee Doodle'". The Fort Wayne Sentinel. 1918-10-02. p. 14. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "Former Resident is Dead". The Fort Wayne Sentinel. 1919-11-06. p. 11. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. 1 2 3 "S. A. Karn Music Co". The Fort Wayne Sentinel. 1904-10-15. p. 11. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Denies Report". The Fort Wayne News. 1914-05-13. p. 6. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ Karn, Esther Nelson (1900). "Snow-Flakes". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  13. ↑ Library of Congress Copyright Office (1915). Catalogue of Title Entries of Books and Other Articles Entered in the Office of the Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, at Washington, D.C. p. 476.
  14. ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries: Books. Library of Congress, Copyright Office. 1926. p. 368.
  15. 1 2 "Was Long Prominent in the Music Trade". The Fort Wayne Sentinel. 1904-11-17. p. 4. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "The Karn Music Company Incorporated". The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. 1902-05-15. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "Mrs. Karn Dies at 76". The South Bend Tribune. 1936-04-14. p. 7. Retrieved 2022-09-28 – via Newspapers.com.
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