Esther Sale Reiff was born on April 14th. 1885 in Yanishik in the western Russian Empire probably in the Lithuania–Latvia border region. She was the daughter of Joseph and Freyda Sale. Her siblings were: Mary Shadden (nee Sale),Paul Sale,Isaac Sale & Hannah Mathison (nee Sale)
Family tradition remembers Esther as politically outspoken and sympathetic to revolutionary or socialist ideas. As a young woman she reportedly participated in demonstrations in Russia. In 1907, she travelled to Berlin to study, an exceptional opportunity for a Jewish woman of her generation. Political unrest apparently disrupted her studies, and she was forced to leave Germany.
In approximately 1908, Esther travelled to the Transvaal, where her brothers Paul and Isaac Sale were already living. Three years later, in September 1911, she married the widowed photographer David Mendel Reiff. David had a young daughter, Jessie, whom Esther appears to have raised as her own.
Esther and David had four children together: Ida, Joseph Isaac (Sonny), Sybil and Frederick Abraham. The family lived in the Transvaal, particularly around Ermelo and Standerton, where David operated a photographic studio and was involved in Jewish communal affairs.
They later moved to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia. Esther became the centre of a large family and remained closely connected with relatives scattered across Africa and the United States. She maintained a lifelong correspondence with her sister Mary, who had settled in Pennsylvania. Late in life, Esther crossed the Atlantic to reunite with her after many decades apart.
Widowed following David’s death in 1946, Esther remained in Bulawayo. She died at her home on April 1st, 1968 and was buried in the Bulawayo Jewish Cemetery.
