MotherKaren: Esther Ann Prediger, My Maternal Grandmother, Died Today

Ann and Carol

Before I was born an old gypsy woman told my grandmother she would live to be 90 years old and find love again.

Esther Ann was blessed with two beautiful girls during her first marriage, but not a faithful husband. She wanted to find love again. After leaving Germany during the occupation in 1948 after the end of WWII, Ann returned to the USA to seek a divorce. One look at my beautiful grandmother and the gypsy woman could have easily predicted she would find love again. She was gorgeous and vivacious, but 90 years of life? That would be extraordinary.

Sixty-six years later, my beautiful grandmother, and doppleganger of Elizabeth Taylor, died this morning at 5AM in Salt Lake City, UT after 92 years of life. Her daughter, Carol, tended her through the last hours of her life. Although Ann was not conscious, her body fought approaching death and Carol was glad that Ann was unaware of the physical throws of this transtion. Ann's son, Steve, was exhausted from the past several days of assisting his mother. He had accompanied Ann during most of her last widowed years of life.

Esther was born on March 3, 1921, in Logan, Utah, to Anna Jane Sant Hatch and Hyrum Ezra Hatch.

Her parents cherished her and her brothers toughened her into the most ravishing tomboy Holly, Colorado had ever experienced.

Esther Ann and Paul

The caboose of the family, Martha, was a beloved sister to Ann, now, no longer the "only girl."

Martha and Esther Hatch

Her beauty wasn't wasted on a retiring personality, but rather Ann's keen mind and wit drove her to perform hilarious monologues for admiring school and church groups. Her talented seamtress mother clothed her in lovely dresses and even used Ann's close friend in Colorado as a "dress form" to create a formal gown for Ann who needed a formal dress for the Utah State University formal in Logan, Utah. Ann's teens years were a dancing, delicious blur of group games and dances in the sugar company warehouse and her mother's good cooking.

Regarding Ann's first marriage, beautiful Ann was deceived by Clayne Tripp's handsome cleft chin and engaging intellect.

Esther Ann and Clayne Tripp

But the delightful result of their union were two highly intelligent, exquisite daughters.

Lynda and Carol Tripp

After the divorce and beginning anew in California, Ann later met and married (21 Aug 1949) Byron Prediger, a handsome chemist at the company for which she worked.

Byron and Ann Prediger

On April 6, 1953, Ann and Byron bore a dark-haired handsome son, named Steven Hunter, in Downey, CA, near their home in Hollydale.

Steve Hunter Prediger

The oil business took Ann and her family to Houston, Texas, where she raised her family and Byron joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints being baptized on May 27, 1971.

Carol, Lynda, Steve, Ann

Ann and Karen Hillyard, granddaughter.

Lynda, Ann, Steve, Carol

Byron and Ann were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on July 28, 1975. During this time Ann would often visit her daughter, Carol, in Utah. Ann loved trips to Star Valley, WY, and floating and fishing the warm water of Lake Powell, UT.

Ann Prediger

Byron Prediger

Ann Prediger Lake Powell, UT

The highlight of one trip to Lake Powell was hooking an enormous cat fish in the fertile lake waters near the houseboat dock used for sewage sucking services.

Steve Prediger catching fish.

Ann Prediger and grandaughter, Renae Hillyard Star Valley, WY

Ann was charming and engaging till the end. Loving hospice nurses and assistants wept when they heard about her death. The last several years of her life she bore the burden of blindness by listening to books on tape which she would borrow through the library system. Her son, Steve, helped her attend family holidays and feasts. Throughout nearly a century of life she reigned as a benevolent matriarch, and that gpysy woman got it wrong--Ann never married a third time for companionship.