From her porch on Forest Green Road, Esther Drager kept watch over the neighborhood. She knew the parents, followed the children as they grew and kept raisins and chocolate ready for those who stopped by on bicycles.

“She loved people,” said her granddaughter, Danielle “Dani” Drager. “Everybody knew her, and she knew everybody.”

Throughout her 101 years, Drager kept up with friends, rarely missed a family milestone and made Sunday dinner a tradition. Fiercely independent, she lived alone until nearly 100 and drove until about 93.

Drager died on June 19 at her son’s home in Thurmont, near Camp Airy.

She had a lifelong connection to Hadassah. Drager raised money for the Cancer Research Life chapter and attended its donor dinners. Her father had made her a life member, and she continued the tradition by making her son and granddaughter life members.

“She thought it was important to carry on that tradition,” her son, Arthur Drager, said.

She also marked special occasions by having trees planted in Israel.

Drager was born on Sept. 29, 1924, the first day of Rosh Hashanah that year, to Sadie Cohen Horwitz and Arthur Louis Horwitz. She grew up on Druid Park Drive, across from Druid Hill Park.

Drager celebrated both her secular and Hebrew birthdays. Her mother made two chocolate cakes, one for each. The tradition continued with chocolate cake, fruitcake or strawberry shortcake.

Drager grew up in a Jewish home. Her father, a woolen-goods jobber on West Baltimore Street, was among the founders of Shaarei Zion Congregation, and she attended its Hebrew school.

The family later joined Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, where Drager remained a member.

After Drager’s father died in 1946, she helped care for her mother and an aunt in their later years. She shopped for groceries, handled errands and took on whatever else was needed.

“That’s how people were back then,” her son said. “They took care of each other in the family.”

She married Daniel Drager in the late 1940s. They worked together from 1956 to 1985 in businesses that included Kiddie City, a children’s clothing store, and a wholesale used-clothing operation.

Both dealt with customers, bookkeeping and business decisions.

During one attempted robbery, a man confronted the couple at gunpoint while Drager was holding a cup of coffee. She threw the coffee in his face, and he ran.

“It worked,” her son said. “It was quick thinking.”

The incident persuaded Daniel Drager it was time for his wife to retire, though Arthur Drager said she probably would have kept working.

The couple went to shows, traveled to New York, vacationed at the beach and took a cruise. After Daniel Drager died in 1993, she never remarried.

“She had the best,” her son recalled her saying. “She didn’t need to get another one, and there wouldn’t be one as good.”

As a mother, Drager made sure her son completed his homework, ate three square meals and received a good education.

She valued direct advice.

“Respect yourself, because if you don’t, who will?” she would say.

Drager disliked the finality of farewells.

“Don’t say goodbye, because goodbye means forever,” she told her family. “So long means see you later.”

Dani became the center of her life. Drager attended her ballet recital, school performances, bat mitzvah and high school graduation.

“I’m second to that, but her granddaughter was No. 1, and that’s OK with me,” Arthur Drager said. “Because she’s No. 1 with me, too.”

Drager and Dani went to lunch, took drives, did their nails and sat on the porch talking. During visits, they often went to the dollar store.

Drager liked buying small decorations, paper plates, gardening supplies and objects whose purpose was not always clear.

“If she liked it, she’d pick it up and try to think of ways to use it,” Dani said.

Drager knitted sweaters for her son and made blankets for her granddaughter by knitting squares and sewing them together. She grew peonies and black-eyed Susans and liked to keep flowers around her home.

For Jewish holidays, she made matzah ball soup and brisket.

Even as she grew older, Drager was careful about her appearance. She matched her outfits, wore a brooch, scarf, gloves or knitted hat and kept her hair done. She went to the hairdresser each week and enjoyed having her nails done.

At home, she watched “Judge Judy” and often sat with one of the family’s poodles on her lap.

Drager maintained a lifelong friendship with Deborah Blank. They went shopping, had lunch and visited each other’s homes.

Family life revolved around Sunday dinners. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, they went out. Later, Arthur and Dani brought dinner to Drager’s home.

Whenever Dani called to visit, her grandmother made time for her.

“Whatever she had going on, she would make time for me,” Dani said.

Dani recalled asking her grandmother to make a baked apple dessert. Drager placed an apple in a plastic container, poured in Coca-Cola, added cinnamon and microwaved it for nine minutes.

Dani looked at the result, expecting a joke. Drager seriously asked whether she wanted some.

Arthur Drager said his mother’s central lesson was simple.

“Family’s number one,” he said. “You take care of your family.”

He said he hopes future generations remember her example: “Live a good life. Take care of yourself, take care of your family and take care of the community.”

Ellen Braunstein is a freelance obituary writer. She welcomes suggestions for individuals who had meaningful ties to the Baltimore Jewish community. Email csix@midatlanticmedia.com.