His family moved to a house across from the Baptist Church west of
Leonardsburg, Ohio. As Early grew, he worked on the McMaster farm,
where they had about fifty head of Percheron horses. He slept in the barn
at night; there was a stove in the barn in winters to keep the hired hands
warm. Later he worked for theDelaware County Home as a farm hand and
there met his future wife, Sarah JaneKeeton, who had come to Delaware
County to visit relatives and decided to work there.
After their marriage on March 31, 1907, in the parsonage of the William
Street Church in Delaware, they lived west of Leonardsburg at the
Whipplefarm. During the summer of 1910 they built a house one mile
north of Leonardsburg on Route 42 east of the railroad. They moved in in
December of that year.Early one morning of March 1917 the house caught
fire; it and its contents were totally destroyed. They then built a house
on the other side of the road .