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Esther Stoll

Esther Stoll, Beaver's foremost representative in the world of music, graduated from Beaver High School in 1914, having come to Beaver as a girl of four in 1899. She took private lessons in voice and sang in the Presbyterian Church of Beaver Falls while attending Geneva. She stayed with this work and study routine when she went to New York to continue her studies, singing in the Bnai Yoshurum Temple and teaching school to pay for her lessons. In 1926 she began her real professional career as a soprano with the city of Kassell Opera in Germany and then joined the Breslau Opera where she sang for three years. Her European career was cut short by the threats of war, her parents refusing to permit her to return after a visit home in the early thirties, and she traveled with the German Opera Company instead. She began teaching voice and one of her early students was Arthur Godfrey whom she later served for ten years as Head of Auditions for his Talent Scouts. She returned to Beaver County to live with her sister in Midland until her death in 1973.