Father and daughter who died on Maine mountain remembered as 'full of life, full of joy'

The father and daughter who died hiking on Mount Katahdin in Maine earlier this month are being remembered by their loved ones for being “full of life” and “full of joy.”

The bodies of Tim Keiderling, 58, and his daughter, 28-year-old Ester Keiderling, both of Ulster Park, New York, were found near the summit of Mount Katahdin on June 3 and 4, respectively. Park rangers began searching for the father and daughter June 2 after finding their car still in the Baxter State Park day-use parking lot.

Tim Keiderling’s body was found following a massive search on Tuesday, with searchers locating Ester Keiderling’s remains a day later. 

Heinrich Arnold, Tim Keiderling’s brother-in-law, said in a statement on Facebook that the father and daughter encountered “terrible” weather, which they succumbed to overnight.

“They were doing a day hike, a bucket list thing, to climb this amazing mountain,” he said. “Both wonderful people, full of life, full of joy.”

According to the obituary for the father and daughter, both were members of the Bruderhof religious group, an international Christian community focused on communal living. 

In the obituary, loved ones wrote that Tim Keiderling was “an avid outdoorsman” who “loved bee-keeping, camping, and hiking” and worked in his community as an elementary school teacher, financial administrator, and traveling salesman. 

“As a teacher, he will be remembered most for his infectious energy, his patient kindness, and his ability to pull together the most rambunctious groups of children,” the obituary reads. “He was at his best when teaching world history and geography, leading hikes through the fields and woods of the Hudson Valley, and spinning yarns around the campfire.”

Esther Keiderling and her father were close, according to their loved ones. She is being remembered for being “a sensitive, deeply-thinking woman who loved reading and writing, with a particular interest in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Edna St. Vincent Millay.”

“Her friends remember with great fondness how attentive she was to the needs of those around her, noticing when someone needed a word of encouragement or a small gift of some kind,” the obituary reads. “Such gifts often included her own heartfelt poetry.”

According to their loved ones, what drew both father and daughter to hiking up to great heights was “always the view.”

“The broad expanse of God’s handiwork, laid out below them,” relatives wrote in the obituary. “The unbearable tragedy of their passing aside, it is perhaps fitting that they went Home from a mountain top: a place of danger and solitude, but also, a place close to God.”

Tim Keiderling is survived by his wife of 31 years, Annemarie, three other daughters, two sons, and two granddaughters, according to the obituary. Funeral services were held Sunday for the father and daughter in Rifton, New York.

Dialynn Dwyer is a reporter and editor at Boston.com, covering breaking and local news across Boston and New England.