Esther Mitchell, 76, a homemaker and devoted mother who encouraged her sons in their athletic pursuits by learning to keep score at baseball games and tolerating an occasional wild pitch indoors, died Saturday, March 25, in St. Vincent Hospice in Indianapolis, after a lengthy battle with cancer. Born Esther McClure in Cincinnati, Mrs. Mitchell studied art at the University of Cincinnati and painted and drew portraits, still lifes and abstract works throughout her life, her son Fred said. “You could just see (that) she enjoyed it while she was doing it; when she had all her paints and easels and equipment out, that she was sort of in her own world,” her son said. She married LeRoy Mitchell Jr., in 1944 and moved with him to East Chicago, Ind., where he worked at the Inland Steel Co., and later to Gary. She raised three sons with gentle attentiveness, sewing sports uniforms, going to games and listening patiently. “She always had the ability to know just what to say when you were very upset to bring things into perspective and show her support,” her son Steve said. Mrs. Mitchell volunteered as an emergency room receptionist at St. Catherine’s Hospital in East Chicago in the 1970s and was involved in church activities in Gary and Indianapolis, where she and her husband moved in 1980. Mr. Mitchell died in 1990. In addition to her sons, Mrs. Mitchell’s survivors include another son, LeRoy III; a brother, Harold McClure; and five grandchildren. A visitation will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 3500 Graceland Ave., Indianapolis. A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday in the church.
