'... a daughter of John F. and Sylvesta (Easton) Howard. The mother had four children, but never saw any of them for she was blind for sixty years. She died February 2, 1902, at the age of eighty-six years and six months. John F. Howard and his wife were both natives of New York, being married in Jefferson county, that state and they lived successively in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, coming eventually to the last mentioned state in 1852.'