A Woman Who Knows Her History

When the house where she was born and all her family heirlooms were destroyed in a fire, Esther R. Cramer decided to become a historian.

“I realized if somebody didn’t record all this stuff, there would be a lot of homes burned down” and no archives to tell the stories of the past, said the 70-year-old teacher turned author.

In 1969, after eight years of research, Cramer’s first award-winning book, “La Habra: The Pass Through the Hills” was released. She then wrote the 1973 book about the history of one of Orange County’s oldest grocery corporations, “The Alpha Beta Story.”

Cramer edited “A Hundred Years of Yesterdays,” a collection of stories of all Orange County cities, published in 1989. In 1993, the city of Brea published the book it commissioned her to write, “Brea: The City of Oil, Oranges and Opportunity.” A year later, she co-edited and wrote a chapter in “Orange County Businesses.”

Today, 38 years after the blaze that erased her cherished house, Cramer has published her first children’s book on the history of her hometown: “A Bell in the Barranca: A Story About La Habra Valley at the Turn of the Century.”

It’s a true account that weaves a mystery about a bell, found in the 1890s by a boy named Manuel Corona, around stories about the early settlers of the area. Corona brought the bell, thought to come from a church, to the town school to display it, Cramer narrates. No one knows where the bell originally came from, and after it disappears from the school, no one can find where it went.

“Rather than being just a straightforward history written in children’s language, it’s a story about kids for kids,” she said.

Throughout the book are illustrations, drawn by Theresa Murillo, and old photographs of the people mentioned. Murillo’s pictures hide bells that the book asks its readers to find.

Cramer will sign books at noon Saturday at the Children’s Museum at La Habra, 301 S. Euclid St. The museum, which owns the rights to the book, is selling it for $9.95. All proceeds from the book sales benefit the museum’s educational programs.

Cramer is a descendant of the pioneer Leutwiler and Ridgway families of the La Habra Valley. She belongs to a number of historical societies and currently is working on a second children’s book about the city during the 1910s through the 1930s.

“A Bell in the Barranca” already has sold more than 100 copies, said museum director Catherine M. Michaels, the book’s editor. “What I like about the book is that it puts history in a story format. It helps the kids learn it better. Local children who read the book will learn specifically about La Habra, but it’s a good general story about home and school life at the turn of the century.”