Gotberg gives back
Growing up on a Coburg area farm, Esther Mae (Johnson) Gotberg learned about hard work, the importance of family, and the happiness one feels when helping others.
For Gotberg, the eldest of four children born to Viemar and Mary Johnson, there hasn’t been a time in her life where she wasn’t helping those in need. Even at the age of 99, Gotberg is still serving the Lord, and others, as a weekly volunteer at the Christ’s Cupboard Community Food Pantry in Red Oak.
Following graduation in 1937, Gotberg attended junior college for one year and then began teaching country school. She met her husband, Eugene Montgomery, from Corydon, at a Vacation Bible School. She taught country school for five years and after marrying Montgomery in 1944, she’d take the train each Friday from Red Oak to Corydon to see her husband.
“We were married March 25 on a weekend and I went back the following week to teach. Each weekend I’d take the train to see him and I’d tell the conductor to drop me off at the Brookfield intersection and then I’d walk a mile to his farmstead,” Gotberg recalled. “We were married a year and five days when he was killed near Hanau and Frankfurt, Germany, where he was a scout with General Patton’s Third Army.”
Gotberg said she was worried when she received a telegram her husband had been wounded but thought maybe he’d be able to return home. Her hopes were dashed quickly with a telegram dated the following day reporting he had died.
“He is buried in Promise City, and it’s a promise I’ll see him again one day,” she said.
Following her husband’s death, Gotberg attended two years of college in North Park, Ill., majoring in Christian Works. She then worked as a church secretary in Boston, Mass. for numerous years, along with being a parish worker, bringing comfort, care and encouragement for those who are ill. She’d later continue her work in Detroit, Mich.
“God gives you the strength to move forward. He will lead you. It was interesting and enjoyable work.”
Gotberg remarried more than 30 years after Montgomery died to Carl Axel Gotberg; they were able to spend roughly 15 years together before he died. In 1993, Gotberg returned to Red Oak, where she started volunteering at the Christ’s Cupboard in 1997 when it opened.
“It was located within a small office with a table and shelving when it first started.
“As we went further along, more rooms became available in the building and Bill Horner and his daughter, Jenny, saw there were racks, shelving and tables. It has snowballed.”
Located at 604 4th St., Christ’s Cupboard is open from 2 to 5 p.m. and operated by those of the First Covenant Church. Gotberg explained the pantry exists to help meet the short-term needs of the area’s hungry in our area as an expression of love for God and people in crisis.
“In Matthew 25:31-45 it reads when you help hungry and needy people it is as if you are helping Jesus Himself,” Gotberg said. “I love to work there. It’s wonderful how it goes Wednesday afternoons.”
In 2018, there were 1,310 family unit visits, representing 4,054 individuals at the pantry.