Louise Van Kesteren

Louise Rouner van Kesteren died on December 23, 2010, in Jupiter, Florida. She was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on December 15, 1931, the second daughter and the fourth child of Elizabeth Rouner and the Reverend Arthur A. Rouner, the minister of the city’s North Church. Louise attended the Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, and Trinity College of Music in London.

During a summer holiday from Trinity, Louise attended the Mozarteum, a university of music and dramatic arts, in Salzburg , Austria, where she met, and later married, John van Kesteren, an operatic tenor from Holland. John was subsequently knighted by Queen Julianna for the work he did to increase appreciation for music through radio, television, and live concerts throughout the Dutch nation.

Sir John was a member of the Munich State Opera for 20 years until the late 1970s, when he retired and the van Kesterens moved to Tequesta, Florida, where they had friends. They were assured that winter in Florida did not include shoveling snow. In their travels around Florida, they saw a need for a formal program to help feed the poor. Louise and Sir John created Feed the Hungry at Home and ran it for several years. They organized the Blowing Rocks Music Festival as a fundraising organization for that program.

Louise Rouner van Kesteren is survived by her sister Elizabeth S. Rouner, of Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, and by her brother the Reverend Arthur A. Rouner, Jr., of Edina, Minnesota, as well as by a number of nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews. A memorial service will be held in late February and burial will be in Florida.