Florence Hoover Kealing was born on January 21, 1903, in Minerva, Ohio, where her father was a Christian Church minister. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois, Tipton and Indianapolis, Indiana. After graduating from Shortridge High School, she attended Butler College and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She graduated from Butler in 1923.

Her first job after graduation was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she was an Industrial Secretary with the Y.W.C.A. She later moved to the Detroit Y.W.C.A. in the same capacity.

On January 3, 1925, Florence was married to Harold Freeman Kealing, a lawyer, and a graduate of Butler where he was a Phi Delta Theta. Harold's mother, Anna Kealing, and his grandmother Freeman, attended the wedding in the Hoover living room, surrounded by members of the immediate family. Lyman, who was in New Haven, Connecticut, at Yale Divinity School, could not be present. Florence's father performed the wedding ceremony. A family reception for the couple followed.

After her marriage, Florence became a social service secretary at City Hospital in Indianapolis. She carried on this work until John Hoover Kealing was born on August 2, 1928. A daughter, Virginia Anne Kealing Frederick, was born on March 13, 1930, and a son, James Lyman Kealing, on April 4, 1932.

Both Florence and Harold played the piano. We had an "upright" in good condition in our living room. Florence had taken lessons from a very strict piano teacher in Indianapolis after the family moved there in 1913, when she was ten years old. He was named Duncan and she always spoke of him as Professor Duncan.

During World War I Florence bought a lot of sheet music, some war-related. We had no radio or television then. She would begin to play the piano after supper; the family would gather round and sing the songs, some old, some new.

She also knit many sweaters, socks and scarves for the soldiers. Ft. Benjamin Harrison was located nearby. Two cousins from Ohio were stationed there, before being sent over seas, and they often came to our house for dinner, Giles and Paul Hoover.

Florence could make her own clothes and even some of her hats. She was always a good student in school. At Butler, she was elected to Phi Kappa Phi, a scholastic honorary.

Just before her thirty-first birthday, Florence entered Methodist Hospital for surgery. Her mother had died on September 15, 1933; Florence passed away in the hospital on January 7, 1934. It was a very sad time for the Hoover family.