By 1930 the family had moved to Sacramento County, California, where the father was a ranch hand. The parents divorced that year after the mother alleged domestic abuse.
Mother and son remained in the county and she married a rancher from nearby Elk Grove the next year. Forrest graduated from Elk Grove High in 1936.
Two years later, on Thanksgiving Day, his step-father stabbed him with a pruning knife. One of the first all-women juries in county history convicted the step-father in March 1939 and he was sentenced to eight months in jail. By then, the mother and step-father were divorced.
Mr. Estes enlisted in the Navy that summer and went aboard the U.S.S. Arizona in September.
He was a fireman first class when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.