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Esther Ruth Underwood Doster      Esther Ruth Underwood Doster, 105, of Quaker Friendly Center, 290 Prairie Ave., Apt. 208, Wilmington, died 8:20 a.m. Thursday (Oct. 23, 2008) in the emergency room at Clinton Memorial Hospital, Wilmington. She was preceded in death by her husband, William Sexton Doster. They were married June 18, 1930.      Mrs. Doster was born March 29, 1903, on her fathers farm on Brimstone Road, Chester Township, Clinton County, daughter of Daniel Bailey Underwood and Wilhelmina Hahn Doster. She taught school in four counties, from a one-room schoolhouse to most recently teaching in the Clinton-Massie School District until her retirement. She grew as a member of the Miami Quaker Meeting and later a member of Jonahs Run Baptist Church. She was a member of the Tau Theta Chi Sorority, Progress Club, Daughters of the American Colonists, Harveysburg Book Review, Womens Christian Temperance Union, Anti-Cant Society and Ohio State Retired Teachers Association. She received her teaching certificate from Wilmington College and also received and held a life teaching certificate.      She is survived by three sons, Dr. D. Howard (Barbara) Doster of Waynesville, Dr. W. Robert (Mary Lou) Doster of Buckeye, Ariz., and John Underwood (Carol) Doster of Waynesville; a daughter, Jane (Doug) Strecker of Medical Lake, Wash.; 12 grandchildren, David (Cindi) Doster, Daniel (Melody) Doster, Susan Doster, Anne (Travis) Doster Glaze, Karen (Shawn) Dunivant, Diane Doster, William C. (Tammy) Doster, Stephen Doster, Debra (Richard) Hovey, Alison (Stephen) Crombie, Amy Doster and Amanda Doster; 20 great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.      In addition to her husband and parents, she was preceded in death by three sisters, Sara Braddock, Ada Grace Braddock and Ruby Dale Wilde.      Graveside services will be held 10 a.m. Tuesday at Miami Cemetery, Corwin, and memorial services will be held 2 p.m. Tuesday at Jonahs Run Baptist Church, 9614 SR 73, Waynesville, Pastor Roger Hilbert officiating. Visitation will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Monday at REYNOLDS-SMITH FUNERAL HOME, 327 N. South St., Wilmington. Memorial contributions may be made to Quaker Friendly Center, 290 Prairie Ave., Wilmington, 45177; Jonahs Run Baptist Church, 9614 SR 73, Waynesville, 45068; or Waynesville Friends, in care of Quaker Heights Care Community, 514 W. High St., Waynesville, 45068. For more information or to sign the funeral homes online registry of condolences, visit http://www.smithandson funeralhomes.com.       From Howard Doster:      She was still teaching me last night, but for the first time in 16 years, I didn't call Mom tonight. What great experiences we shared! This morning, she told her care-giver she was ready to die; and she did, peacefully, with not an ache or pain, just as she lived on the Warren-Clinton County line for most of these last 105 years.      Next spring, for the first time in 89 years, Esther will be missed at her Kingman high school alumni; and for the first time in 84 years, her Wilmington College alumni; and for the first time in 80 years, her husband's Collett-McKay family picnic. She said, "Some persons attend these things; some don't. Doster's do, as soon as the corn is planted and the hay is put up."      Esther Underwood Doster Memorial Service will be held 2 pm Tuesday, October 28,2008 at Jonah's Run Baptist Church, 9614 SR 73-W,Wilmington, Ohio,45177,2 miles west of I-71 exit 45. Current pastors-Roger Hilbert and Jay Williams, plus former pastors-Steven Fitz, Fred McNight, Dan Doster(her grandson), Charles Ellison(her first friend's son), and perhaps Jim Schultz will come from four states to share in the celebration.      Born March 29, 1903, on her father's adjacent-to-the-now-25-member 170-year old husband's family church(where she was still teaching SS on her 92nd birthday, and where she prepared communion for 57 years) farm, she married William Doster, a tenant neighbor's son, and they lived out their lives within a two-mile area. Their's was the first marriage between two mostly Quaker families who moved into this Northwest Territory area from Virginia and Pennsylvinia,to get away from slavery,just after 1800.      Esther learned and then taught that the Ordinance of 1787 which provided for trial by jury, no slavery, and provision for public schools was perhaps more significant than our US Constitution.      Starting with her "Anti-Can't Society" in her one-room school 4th grade, Esther and her husband co-founded many local community, farm, and church groups. When asked recently how they decided to do things off the farm, she answered,"We asked two questions, is it significant? and, can we do it?" If "yes", they did it.      Teaching first in a one-room school in 1922, Esther earned a Life Teaching Certificate while teaching in schools in four nearby counties. When she retired just after helping to pay off their farm mortgage, her son, Howard, was teaching at Purdue; son, Robert, was a veternarian in Arizona; son,John, was a Voag teacher;and daughter, Jane, was employed on an air base in Washington.            Esther stopped teaching for awhile when she married in 1930 because only men could teach after marriage, so as to spread the scarce teacher money to more families. While her children were in school, and her husband was local school board president, Esther taught a monthly temperance class, "The Loyal Temperance Legion" (LTL) to middle school classes. While touring Russian Agricultural Research Stations with Purdue colleagues in 1991, a few days after the coups, Howard recited the LTL motto-"Not too much of anything, and some things none at all," to the first communist research director who chided him for not drinking vodka. Though the vodka ritual was repeated at eight other stations, no one chided Howard again.      As evidence of how her influence continues to spread, descendants now living in 14 states will receive this email and many will likely come back to her Brimstone Road home. Likely, we'll again sit on the porch where she was married in the house where she and her father were born,and look out over the valley to the church on the east and her family's land in between. We'll note the road where her future husband drove his horse-drawn school wagon to pick up Esther and her younger sisters. Someone will point out "Pleasant View Farm" to the southwest, and remember the girls said their neighbors named their farm because they looked down on them. Likely, someone will repeat what they've heard Esther say while sitting there so many times at family reunions, "This is the one spot in the world where everything is in its right place."      Rememberance gifts may be made to Quaker Friendly Center in Wilmington, her home for the last 12 years; Miami Quaker Meeting in Waynesville, her father's family Meeting; and Jonah's Run Baptist Church, which she joined after two of her sons.      Howard Doster 765 412 1495

ESTHER DOSTER'S 90th KINGMAN ALUMNI By D. Howard Doster, her son, and friend What thoughts come into your mind as you remember your high school alumni parties? My mind is full of mostly fun thoughts of those experiences that continue to mold our lives. Three weeks ago, Ellen Gilbert called to confirm Mom's birth date. It was March 29, 1903. Ellen and Jim Hackney, both Dad's Haines-Collett-McKay cousins, were creating a short story about each of the Kingman alumni who would be recognized at their 90th Kingman alumni on June 11. Since Mom, Esther Underwood Doster, died in October, 2008, this was the third alumni she's missed, after not missing 88. I can hear her saying, every year about now, "Some persons attend alumni and the Collett-McKay Picnic. Some don't. We do." Now Dad, William Doster, said, "First, we've got to get the corn planted and the hay put up". I think we always did. I know they always went to Kingman, and Wilmington College Alumni and we all went to Collett-McKay Picnic, at 5353 Gurneyville Road, the second Saturday in August. After Dad died in 1984, I took Mom. I learned a Kingman tradition is to feature each 10-year class, thus Ellen and Jim are carrying on the tradition. Mom was perhaps the first, and only, Kingman grad to speak at her 80th alumni. I also remember her speech at her 70th. A long-time teacher, she had rehearsed, and she had notes, but she didn't look at them. Mom ad-libbed at the beginning of her 70th speech. Dad's cousin-we have a common Haines ancestor who was a Quaker when he came to Burlington, West Jersey in 1682-Aldon Haines had decorated the tables as if it were the fourth of July, in recognition of our military then involved in Desert Storm. Some in the audience gasped when Mom noted that she had lived about a third of the time we had been the United States of America. Mom also ad-libbed when she noticed two daughters of her former Kingman superintendant had come up from Florida for the Alumni. She told how their father had made bleachers above their gym floor. He added a stairs to the bleachers, and personally put it up and took it down during games. Mom, who also later played basketball at Wilmington College, remarked how fortunate Kingman was to have a real gym. She said when her Kingman team played some schools, the games were held in a shed or a barn. Mom started her prepared speech by sharing a story I heard for the first time. She said she and her three younger sisters rode to Kingman from their Brimstone Road home in a horse-drawn school wagon. It was driven by two older Doster boys; William, who was four years older than Mom, and Charles, who was three years older. Mom said she and her sisters would watch from their front porch for the Doster school wagon to appear on now Collett Road, just before coming onto now State Route 73 for two hundred yards before turning down Brimstone Road, on the Warren-Clinton County line. Mom said her sister, Sara, sometimes sat on driver Charles's lap, and put yarn around his ears as she made clothes on the way to school. The day before her first Alumni, Mom said one of those older Doster boys called, on their 10-party phone line, and offered to take her to Kingman Alumni. She said she wondered if it was a date. She said it was. It was their first date; no wonder she kept perfect attendance for 88 Kingman alumni's. Mom said she and Dad postponed marriage so she could teach school. Women who married lost their teaching jobs during the Depression, so as to spread the salaries to more persons. When they did marry, the wedding was on Mom's front porch, where she formerly watched for him to take her to Kingman School. The fourth Saturday in July, my Underwood cousins and I still sit on now Grismer's front porch, and share the stories we heard Mom and her sisters tell here. Mom said it is the one spot in the world where everything is in its right place. The north-south Bullskin Trail is to the far right, crossing now SR 73 at the top of Hatton's Hill. Mom said Dr. Hatton named their farm "Pleasant View" because they looked down on the four Underwood girls. Charles Ellison's house is directly across the valley in the distant center. His mother became Mom's first friend as they walked to Jonah's Run Baptist Sunday School, before her dad bought a car and they drove to Quaker Meeting in Waynesville. The Collett blacksmith shop site is next. To the upper left is the JR Church, and to the far left is the fruit storage Mom's dad built, and beyond it is the Tower House her step-grandmother built with the first inside bathtub in Clinton County. Mom's Underwood family lived on the north side of now SR 73 for over 100 years. Dad's Collett family has lived on the south side of now SR 73 since 1814. I am the oldest child of the only marriage between those two families. Mom joined Jonah's Run Baptist Church, started by Dad's Collett cousins in 1838, after I did. On her 92nd birthday, I attended JR, including the SS class Mom taught. When she was 100, Mom gave money for JR to buy some of her grandmother's former Underwood land adjacent to the church. Mom and I soon marked a spot, with a bucket placed on a post, for her bones to be buried there. We could see the bucket from the now Grismer porch. I still need to get Mom's bones moved to that spot. At her 70th Alumni, although I don't remember the details, Mom said something good about each of her former teachers and classmates, all of whom were then deceased. I do remember the details she shared about her high school debate team; herself and her future Collett-McKay Picnic cousin, Howard Shambaugh. Howard had skipped two years of school so he was closer to Mom in school, than to Aunt Sara, Mom's next younger sister. They debated three years. Mom said their topics were: (1) Women Suffrage-"We just knew there would be no more wars, once women got the vote." (2) Prohibition-"We just knew there would be less crime, once we got rid of saloons." (3) League of Nations-"But our country wasn't ready for that." Mom didn't tell the Alumni, but she told me on the way home. She and Howard were undefeated as debaters. Maybe fifteen years ago, I saw Howard at Quaker Friendly Center in Wilmington while he was visiting his sister, Ernestine, who played center on Kingman's basketball team with Mom. When I introduced my daughter, Anne, to Howard, I said he and Mom were undefeated debaters. Howard smiled, and, on the spot, gave Mom's negative "League of Nations" speech. Although he lived to be over 100, Howard was never recognized as the oldest person at the Collett-McKay Picnic. Why? Mom outlived Howard, deciding to die at 105. This is my 60th high school alumni year, and I looked forward to visiting with Kingman students from that class, including both basketball boys and cheerleader girls, including one I dated. Dad was center on the 1916 Kingman basketball team that played three games in one day at Wilmington College to win the first county tourney. Their picture was featured on the trophy table. I graduated from Harveysburg, where Mom taught, after I left, and Dad was long-time school board president. I remember that the 50th anniversary at Harveysburg Alumni was the time when everyone in the class spoke. For years, I thought about what I would say, but, when our turn came, only two others were there, and no one said much. I was disappointed. Last month, my 60th year class was recognized at Harveyburg Alumni, now held at Clinton-Massie. I was the only class member present. I told about the thoughtful service "cheerleader" Wyiona Dabe Staffen and her husband, Bill, are doing as they mentor kids held in Lebanon jail. I said that cheerleader Rita Clark Dell, our class president, who now lives in Wilmington, surrounded by her grandchildren, is descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence. And, I shared that basketball classmate Howard Mason, now deceased, is a descendent of slave Sally Heming and President Thomas Jefferson. There were eight in my high school class, until two more decided to skip their senior year. Our little gym, where Howard Mason scored 26 points one night, and I scored 32 the next game, burned down in March, sixty years ago. My class graduation ceremonies were held in our Jonah's Run Baptist Church. I remember writing my valedictory speech as I rode with my Aunt Ann and Uncle Wilford Cossum from Columbus, where I started to Ohio State in March of my senior year. Just after we graduated, I remember Uncle Wilford telling me that I was then the smartest I would ever be. Except for Rita and Wyiona, I've seen none of my class since our graduation night sixty years ago. We went our different ways. My wife, Barbara, whom I met at Ohio State, and I both taught many years at Purdue University. Seventeen years ago, we learned about my Virginia Quaker McKay ancestors, and fifteen years ago, bought their 1818 home on the NW edge of now Caesar Creek State Park, NE of Waynesville. Although we never really left here, we became Ohio citizens again only last year. A daughter lives nearby and a son has lived near here, and has recently bought another lot next to his sister. Their kids are the ninth generation of McKay's to have a Waynesville address, and they will be the eighth generation of Colletts to own our land. Here's a poem I wrote on an envelope, while driving through the Indiana country-side, in the winter of 1986. I was feeling lonely, and sorry for so many of my farmer friends who had bought one farm too many. I decided to give myself a pep talk. Later, I placed the poem at the top of my farm accounting lecture for my farm management class students on February 9. THE FUN IS IN THE RUN The fun is in the run. Make your daily run fun. Each day, at work or at play It's what we do and what we say That makes the difference In our way. The fun's done when the race is won. Daily we must look for a new race to run. What is the test? Daily to do our best. Anything less is a sin. Run hard, run well, and win. Later, one of my students used the poem in his valedictory. When asked the source, he answered "Dr. Doster's accounting lecture notes." His questioner responded, "I might have guessed, ALL ONE SYLABLE WORDS." I smiled. -30-

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