ESP32 memory leaks WIFI and MQTT

Thank everyone for their suggestions. I have just gotten back to trying this again (had some OT at work and other things going on).

I am starting with a fresh install of everything (even my OS because when I tried to update Debian from stretch to buster, I broke it).

The ESP32 board that I'm using are MELIFE 2 ESP-32S (ESP-WROOM-32 module with 4MB flash, no pSRAM).

I've done a fresh flash of the firmware and I get the following right after flashing:

>ESP32.getState();
={
  sdkVersion: "v3.1.3-dirty",
  freeHeap: 35712, BLE: true, Wifi: true, minHeap: 33112 }

>process.memory();
={ free: 2264, usage: 36, total: 2300, history: 13,
  gc: 0, gctime: 1.876 }

>process.env
={
  VERSION: "2v04",
  GIT_COMMIT: "3956264e",
  BOARD: "ESP32",
  FLASH: 0, RAM: 524288,
  SERIAL: "3c71bff1-179c",
  CONSOLE: "Serial1",
  MODULES: "Flash,Storage,hea" ... "r,crypto,neopixel",
  EXPTR: 1073484860 }

I then disabled bluetooth and get much more memory:

>ESP32.enableBLE(false); 
>process.memory();
={ free: 4071, usage: 29, total: 4100, history: 0,
  gc: 0, gctime: 3.209 }

Then I turned on WIFI using

var ssid = 'YOUR_SSID';
var password = 'YOUR_SSID_PASSWORD';

var wifi = require('Wifi');
wifi.connect(ssid, {password: password}, function() {
    console.log('Connected to Wifi.  IP address is:', wifi.getIP().ip);
    wifi.save(); // Next reboot will auto-connect
});

My WIFI does not re-connect on it's own (if I say reboot my WIFI router). However, it does connect when I reboot the ESP32.

I'll try some of the other suggestions and see what I get.