Estelle Panzer Papers

Estelle Chasnoff was born in Houston and raised in the Pasadena/South Houston area. She grew up attending Beth Yeshurun synagogue with her family. After graduating from South Houston High School, she attended The University of Texas in Austin. While she was in her 20s, she worked as a wage-hour investigator for the Department of Labor. Estelle married Mark Panzer in 1978 and the couple had two children. While her children were young, outside of some musical work, she was a stay-at-home mom.

During that time, Estelle had an idea about creating a board game modeled on Trivial Pursuit, except focused on Jewish trivia. Coincidentally, Estelle's cousin-in-law, Janis Odensky, had the same idea. When they discovered they were both working on a Jewish trivia game, the two joined forces along with Janis's friend, Judy Jordan, and created the Tradition board game in 1985.

The game grew in popularity during the mid-eighties and was sold in department stores across the United States, as well as throughout the United Kingdom and South Africa, even spawning a children's version of the game.

Estelle is an accomplished pianist. She has participated in a variety of productions and worked extensively on events put on by the Jewish Community Center, including as musical director. She is a licensed CPA in Bellaire, Texas.