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= Esther Kisk Goddard = Esther Christine Goddard (née Kisk; March 31, 1901 – June 4, 1982) was the wife of American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor Robert H. Goddard. Robert Goddard is credited with building the worlds first liquid-fueled rocket. The couple were married from 1924 until Robert's death in 1945. During her husband's lifetime, Esther assisted her husband in his experiments as a photographer and after his death spent years cataloging and editing his papers, as well as filing over 131 patents for his works.

Biography
Esther Kisk was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to Swedish immigrant parents, August (1872 – 1935) and Augusta (née Johnson; 1877 – 1952) Kisk. Her father was a foreman in a woodworking shop, and her mother ran a lunch stand at another factory. She had one sibling, a brother, Albert Walter Kisk (1903 – 1959), two years her junior.

Esther attended South High School in Worcester, the same high school her future husband had attended 13 years earlier. Graduating from South High in 1917, at the age of 16. For a year she worked as an office clerk and studied typing at evening school. She eventually matriculated to Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine. At Bates, she earned straight As in English, French, German, Greek, history, and public speaking. In 1922, as a Bates sophomore, she served as vice-president for the Class of 1924. To earn money for college Esther worked at Clark University as secretary to Clark College president, Edmund Sanford.

In October of 1919, Esther Kisk met Clark physics professor, Robert Goddard. Goddard was often in need of a typist, and Esther took in typing to continue to earn money for college. Over time, the couple got to know one another, with Robert often visiting Esther at her home which was located near the university. In 1922, Esther and Robert announced their engagement, and the couple were wed on June 21, 1924 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Worcester. She was twenty-three, and he was just shy of his forty-second birthday. After an automobile trip honeymoon to the White Mountains, the couple return to Worcester to live at Maple Hill, Robert's family home. The couple had no children.

After settling into married life, Robert eventually asked Esther if she would act as a helper with his rocket experiments, and she agreed. On March 8, 1926 she took home-movies of his first liquid propellant flight, a test which ultimately failed. The next week, on March 16, 1926 she filmed the launch of Goddard's first successful flight. Esther later claimed that was the day, "I lost my heart to rockets." For the rest of Robert's career, Esther worked as her husband's assistant filming and photographing his experiments and acting as his secretary and book-keeper.

In 1930, Daniel Guggenheim provided a large grant for Robert's rocket work, and the couple moved to Roswell, New Mexico, where Robert carried on full-time research and Esther continued with her photography and secretarial work. According to Esther later in life, "We had our ups and downs but mostly ups."