Jacob T. Earnest was born at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia He married Anna Wallace who was born at Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Their children were Maude, Belle, Louise, Charles, J. Thomas and Dan.
On her application for the Lake Worth Pioneers Association, Maude states she was born 19 September 1873 and arrived on Lake Worth in 1886-1887.
The Earnest family lived in a two-story house on the lake front just to the north of the east end of Osborne/Lantana Road. This was close to the first school in Lantana. A Youth Census of Dade County, Florida, of 1 June 1896 lists the names of Dan and Thomas Earnest. (We were part of Dade County until 1909.) Maude states she attended the first school with Susie Brown as the teacher. This must have been the one on North Lake Trail in Palm Beach. The building is now in Phipps Ocean Front Park on AlA, north of Lake Worth.
Maude wrote that her father homesteaded in Lantana, and had a sawmill about two miles west of the Lantana settlement, on Lake Osborne. An old map shows the location of the road and sawmill. He had a small commissary in a warehouse on his shipping dock.
In 1892, Jacob Earnest was described as an old gentleman with a long, white beard, patriarchal appearance and serene attitude.(A History of Juno Beach, DuBois). At a crucial moment in a political caucus, he spoke in a calm voice which brought compromise rather than bloodshed.
A Lantana pioneer told of Maude and Belle being home alone one day when the house caught fire. They were busy throwing belongings out of the window and hollering for help.
Maude married first Fred Shaw who was the Express and Freight Agent at Lantana for the Florida East Coast Railway. One day he rode his bicycle to West Palm Beach and was struck by lightning. He was not found until the next day. Maude married second John Bausert. In 1953, Charles G. Shaw, her son, was living in Texas. A daughter, Annabel Bausert Kelly, resided in Portland, Oregon. Also, Maude’s sister, Louise, and brother, Charles, were deceased by this time. The others, including Maude, were living in Melbourne, Florida.
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