Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

2IO ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
Easter's house, a good, almost new frame house. He was a
fine man, and his wife was a woman of sweet nature, a good
housekeeper, and the mother of a dear Httle boy. Our associations
were always amicable. We had all of the upstairs and
a large room downstairs for a kitchen and dining room.
Besides the four unmarried Easter boys, father had as pupils
R. L. Howe and Emerson Vandervort. All these young men
were earnest and promising. Emerson Vandervort lived but
a brief life, and, long ago in his prime, Robert Howe passed
away; but he left sons who have been an honor to the name.
His sisters were among the most devoted friends of my young
womanhood.
Brother John Easter was a fervent admirer of the preachers
of the Christian Church in his day, and he displayed this in
the naming of his sons. The boys father taught were John
Burnett, Alexander Campbell, Benjamin Watkins and Hall,
named for father's friend. Dr. Alexander Hall. The Easter
boys were called simply John, Aleck or 'Eck, Ben, and Hall.
There was but one daughter in this family; she was married
and was at home at that time — Mrs. Angeline Geeslin. She
and her husband had lately returned from their home in the
West, and there on the old home farm their first child was
born, while our folks lived on Rocky Fork. This new family
had its following, too, and the little baby in whom we were
interested became the national secretary of the Christian
Woman's Board of Missions, the organization that years
afterward, was to call my only daughter to India. Mrs.
Jennie Geeslin Harlan (Mrs. M. E. Harlan) is an example of
the old saying "blood will tell," and she serves the Church
in a worldwide sense.
Highland County in those days was full of broken woodland,
with many hills, hollows, and caverns. I recall the
fact that when driving through the country, as the wagons
passed along, for quite a distance the ground seemed to indicate
the existence of a cavern; as they were of frequent occurrence,
no one ever thought to investigate these underground rooms.
They were doubtless the hiding place of many a wild animal
— opossum, raccoon, skunk and rabbit. Strange tales were