Esther Snyder

Esther Lavelle Snyder (née Johnson) (January 7, 1920 – August 4, 2006) was an American businesswoman. She co-founded In-N-Out Burger, with her husband Harry Snyder, in 1948. Snyder was the fast-food chain's president from January 2000 until her death.

Esther Snyder
Born	Esther Lavelle Johnson (1920-01-07)January 7, 1920 Sorento, Illinois
Died	August 4, 2006(2006-08-04) (aged 86) Irvine, California
Nationality	American
Known for	Co-founding In-N-Out Burger
Spouse	Harry Snyder ​ ​ (m. 1948; died 1976)​
Children	Guy Snyder Rich Snyder

Early life

Snyder was born and raised in Sorento, Illinois, as the fifth of eight children (seven daughters, one son) to parents Orla and Mabel Johnson. She attended Greenville College and graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a bachelor's degree in zoology.^[1]

Career

During In-N-Out's early years, Snyder managed all of the company bookkeeping herself, creating thousands of pages of handwritten notes and accounts.

From January 2000 until her August 2006 death, Snyder served as the company's president.

Personal life

She met Harry Snyder in 1947, while working at a restaurant in Seattle; the two were married the following year and moved to Baldwin Park, California.^[2] By the late 1950s, the couple had moved to a larger house in the nearby city of San Dimas, California.

Esther and Harry Snyder had three children: biological sons Guy (1951-1999) and Rich Snyder (1952-1993), and an adopted son named Wilbur Stites (1951-1979), a local orphan whom the Snyders began fostering in the early 1960s. Esther outlived her husband, who died in 1976 from lung cancer and all three of their sons: Guy succumbed to a drug overdose, Rich died in a plane crash and Wilbur was killed in an automobile crash.

Following her husband's death, Snyder spent the last two decades of her life living in Glendora, California, where she owned a home that author Stacy Perman described as "a ranch house shaded by oak trees and fronted by a white fence."

Death

Snyder died on August 4, 2006, in Irvine, California, aged 86, from undisclosed causes. Her only grandchild, Lynsi Snyder, is now the heiress to the In-N-Out Burger company.^[3][4]

Esther Snyder Community Center

Since In-N-Out Burger was started in the city of Baldwin Park, the city named its community center after Esther Snyder.^[5]