Esther Wilson Gunning

Esther Jean Wilson Gunning, 95, passed away peacefully at her home, surrounded by family, on Tuesday, February 20, 2024. Esther was born on December 12, 1928 in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of Beatrice Irene Amoss Wilson and Clarence Emory Wilson.

Esther was cheerful, joyful, brilliant and beautiful, a scientist, a sailor, a dancer, a musician, a lifelong learner and loved her family deeply. As a child of the depression, she spent her early years on the family’s 17-acre farm, where she fed the chickens and had a playhouse in the woods that she stocked with broken glassware and dreamed of being a chemist. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology from Mount Saint Agnes College, Mount Washington, Maryland in 1950. She worked at the Baltimore Memorial Hospital as a medical technologist until her children were born, and she made the decision to be at home, as a dedicated, accomplished and loving wife and mother until they were old enough to fend for themselves. Throughout her life, Esther was an excellent seamstress, winning a blue ribbon at the county fair for a dress she made at the age of nine, making all of the curtains and even re-covering furniture as she beautifully decorated the many homes that the family moved to over the years. And – with stylish design and expert finishing – she sewed all of her daughters’ clothes until they graduated from high school. She took tailoring classes and learned to quilt, did exact alterations and made beautiful clothes and furnishings for friends. She also took a “shop class” at the local high school where she built a huge maple cutting board and made book cases for her children’s bedrooms.

Esther was a Certified Medical Technologist in the Registry of Medical Technologists of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists from 1950 through 1985, becoming an Associate Member of the organization in 1982. To re-enter the workforce when her children were older, she took education courses at Temple University, Harrisburg PA campus in 1965-66, and then taught Chemistry Lab Principles and Skills from 1967 to 1970 at the Harrisburg Hospital School of Medical Technology. She then accepted a position as a Medical Technologist at The Penn State University, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey PA, working in the research laboratories of the Department of Comparative Medicine and in the University Hospital Clinical Laboratories until her retirement in 1986. She was always a curious and careful scientist at heart, and took great pleasure in the gleaming glassware and precision of the sensitive instruments that were essential to her work in the lab.

In 1988 she rejoined the workforce as a Medical Technologist for the Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center in York, Pennsylvania, working closely with the staff and physicians, in support of a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions. Esther also loved laboratory management and continued to consult in the field of Medical Technology through her small business “Labnet,” publishing papers in the journal Laboratory Medicine in 1986 and 1992.

Esther entered retirement with energy and excitement. She took classes in everything from Caligraphy and making Ukranian Easter Eggs to Landlord Tenant Law and Basic computer programming. She discovered that she loved dancing, especially Scottish Country Dance. She completed Coastal Piloting Classes in Annapolis Maryland, bought a Sunfish and developed a love of sailing. Her boat was docked at Pinchot Lake near York, Pa., where she raced in multi-class competition, was on the Racing Committee and loved being on the water. She sold her boat when she moved permanently to Gainesville in the 1990’s to be closer to her son Kevin and beloved granddaughter Shea. Shifting her interests from water to land, she continued dancing, and actively participated in various Scottish Country Dance troupes, making her own costumes, and learning all of the dance figures. This quickly awakened an interest in playing music. So, Esther had her father’s violin refurbished and began to study violin. She took 4 semesters of Music Theory from the University of Florida and participated in many summer programs at the Jink & Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling in North Carolina. She occasionally played with the Potomac Valley Scottish Fiddle Club and, in 2006, began spending her summers in Lubec, Maine, attending SummerKeys Music School. There she studied violin under the tutelage of instructors from music schools in New York and even Iceland, and developed many close friendships among her classmates. In Gainesville, Esther played for a short time with the Klezmer Kapelye until she became a member of the multi-generational Annasemble Community Orchestra, playing violin and performing until 2022, beloved and honored as the oldest member.

Esther always enjoyed travel, taking a solo cross-country road trip in July 1978, from Pennsylvania to California to Florida and back that – according to her trip journal -- covered 8,657.2 miles. (Her medical technology background made her a stickler for precision and detail.) In 2005 she accompanied her daughter Susan on a trip to Italy for a visit to Cremona, the home of Amati and Stradivari, inventors and makers of the world’s finest violins, and where she heard the city’s concertmaster play their classic instruments. Even as dementia clouded her memories, Esther sought and enjoyed an exciting life, vastly enriched by many friends, interests and experiences, always returning to embrace her children and grandchildren, to whom her heart was closest.

Esther was predeceased by her husband, John “Jack” Joseph Gunning. Surviving are her brother Spencer Wilson of Sykesville, MD; three children, Kevin Gunning (Sharon Sperling) of Gainesville, Susan Zachos (Louis Zachos) of Oxford, Mississippi, and Linda Gunning (Rodney Barnum), of Herndon, Virginia; eight grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and her 3 nieces. Esther requested that any donations in her memory go to the Annasemble Orchestra - www.annasemble.org/about-us