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WELCOME!  We are Marilyn and Forrest Easley.  Let us tell you a bit about ourselves and our lives and our lifestyle.  We are husband and wife, retired and live in the beautiful Ozark Mountains in southern Missouri.  We enjoy travel, the out of doors, our grandchildren, our hobbies, and each other.  Our home is located midway between the Bull Shoals Lake to the west and the Norfork Lake to the east and four miles northwest of the small town of Gainesville; population about 645 people.

      We own our own 40-acre wooded estate which has three seasonal creeks running through it.  On this beautiful place, we have carved out space and constructed our beautiful home which overlooks the largest of the three creeks and is situated at their confluence behind a three-acre lawn which is joined on either side by scotch pine forests which we planted some 16 years ago.  We enjoy the deer and turkeys which abound here and feed at our front door.

       Our hobbies are music, ham radio  (which began at the age of eight in 1932 because my father was experimenting with radio circuits and I right away became curious and built my first regenerative, one-tube receiver), photography, cabinet making, restoring antique cars (1949 and older), and traveling back roads in the deserts of the west.  We built our own home here near Gainesville, Missouri and enjoy watching the wildlife.  We both work with local schools in the music classes and teach and coach amateur radio classes in one of the schools as a part of the curriculum there.  We are members of two amateur radio clubs and are founders and charter members of one of them.
 
 

        After the war was over, I was employed by the Columbia Broadcasting System, Voice of America shortwave radio stations, at Delano, California as a security guard. I also owned a radio repair shop on the side there in town. While at CBS, I was taken under wing by the 15 company radio engineers who introduced me to the fine points and basics of engineering and under the tutelage of 15 company engineers,  at the end of two years I was assisting the engineers on shift operate and maintain the three transmitters (200 KW, 50 KW, and 50 KW).  This proved to be a very interesting experience which helped form my will and decision to attend Colorado State University where I graduated with a BS Degree in 1958 at the age of 34.  However, prior to attending university, I started, and operated, a commercial-furniture mill where I produced bank furniture, industrial cabinetwork, wooden house doors, molding, and most all other cabinetry items including blanks for violin makers.  As a note, I took a leave from electronics for  a few years to change trades and served a four-year apprenticeship in cabinetmaking under the master Joe Gibbons of Albuquerque New Mexico.
 

        After graduation from  university, I accepted a position with the U.S. Forest Service at Flagstaff where I served my probationary period then was assigned to the Flagstaff District as the coordinator of timber management and reforestation.  After a two-year stint I changed professions and accepted a position with the General Telephone Corporation in the Military Research and Development Department involved with designing and producing multiplexing communications equipment for the Strategic Air Command contracts.  From there, I began doing the same type of work for the US Navy except in the weapons research, design, and development areas.

        I retired from the Navy as a civilian R & D engineer in 1981 as a result of a heart attack.  After the usual medical experiences and a lot of physical work, I am now in excellent health and am retired to the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri.

        Marilyn is a native Missourian having been born in El Dorado Springs, Missouri on July 27, 1939. (As I write this, on July 27 we celebrate her 60th birthday with lunch at Gaston's Lodge near Midway, Arkansas.)  Her mother was a school teacher and pianist, and her father was employed by the US Post Office as a letter carrier where he retired.  Marilyn attended elementary school and high school there and later attended college at Warrensburg, Missouri.  She studied piano and had private lessons for many years and is presently an accomplished pianist and organist, having played for churches, weddings funerals, schools, and a host of other things since the age of eleven, including professional productions such as "OKLAHOMA" and others.  Her repertoire includes accompanist for soloists at all levels including operatic.

        I met Marilyn in 1987 in a very unique way.  We both had read the same ad in our respective newspapers advertising a computer-based people-characteristics matching service.  This was NOT a dating service, but a service that sent questionnaires to be completed by persons who would then return them to the headquarters where all data was entered into a data base.  All persons with similar characteristics could contact others with like traits and pursue whatever relationship they desired.  So each of us received many, many letters and calls.  I had received 129, I think, and eventually culled them down to five.  From there, I managed to "meet" them and reduced the number to only one:  MARILYN who turned out to be my very best friend and wife.  We were married on Valentine's day, 1988 (in El Dorado Springs).

        Marilyn was employed by  Cedar County as the Deputy Court Clerk and "retired" a couple of months after our marriage.  She is a long-time member of the lady's philanthropic organization P.E.O. which owns and operates Cottey Girl's College in Nevada, Missouri and provides grants and scholarships to deserving high school senior girls throughout the US.