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.