Biography

Esther Stratton Witmer was born in West Branch, Cedar County, Iowa in 1908. Her father was a welder/plumber and her mother a writer. She graduated from West Branch High School in 1927 and attended Iowa Wesleyan College for one year before teaching rural school for three years. She was courted by a local farmer Roy Witmer for those three years before marrying him in 1931. They farmed for ten years in southern Cedar County and in 1941 bought 170 acres north of Tipton. They adopted two children during these years. Esther Witmer was active with the local 4-H and was a member of the State Extension Advisory Committee for the county. During the 1940s, she chaired the Tipton County Women’s Committee of the Farm Bureau. In 1945 she was elected an Iowa Master Farm Homemaker. That year she also composed the “Countrywoman’s Creed.” From 1950 to 1956 she was on the Women’s Committee of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and from 1956 to 1960 was its chairwoman. As chairwoman, she served on the Farm Bureau board. In 1962, she was the Iowa Farm Bureau delegate to the Associated Country Women of the World Conference in Australia. She continues to participate in Farm Bureau events locally and at the state.

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