According to local historian Eve Bacon, Luron H Geer was the first professional photographer in Orlando. Mr. and Mrs. Geer came to Orlando sometime in the 1870s and settled on the land around the lake which is named after them – now misspelled, Lake Gear (near Baldwin Park.)
Rosetta Geer was an accomplished oil painter and taught art technique to many Orlando students.
The house on Lake Gear burned down and the family moved into town.
Their daughter Lillie (who never married) was found dead in 1901 (age, 46) of a gun shot wound, a year after her mother died. Mr. Geer died in 1903 at the age of 75.
Hatabel Hyer and Mary Alice Nichols discuss the mystery surrounding Lillie’s death and other unanswered questions regarding the Geer family. Hatabel states that the recording is for the Pioneer Party Line.
We are grateful for the Orange County Regional History Center‘s making this recording available for Orlando Memory.
Reader of the Abstract is Mary Alice Nichols, the granddaughter of Mr. E. A. Richards who was the Executor of the Will.
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