During her school days in Wabash, Geneva began to develop an interest in writing. Strongly rejecting any and all pressures to write on subjects of no interest to her, she did write convincingly and interestingly on topics vital to her. She sometimes neglected her arithmetic for writing. There is no evidence that she, at this time, believed there was any commercial value for the product of her pen. But she did change her given name from Geneva to Genevé, and was called Gene by her family and friends thereafter. Gene was now becoming familiar with Sylvan Lake near Rome City; at twenty-one, she had visited it three times. This was where she later wrote many of her books. Genevé, always interested in the natural wonders of the rather primitive woodlands of that day, now became interested in fishing and water sports. For the remainder of her life she liked to fish. At Sylvan Lake she met a Geneva druggist, Charles Darwin Porter. Their acquaintance developed into a romance, and they were married in 1886. For a year they lived near the Court House in Decatur; thereafter they took up residence in the village of Geneva. The new Mrs. Porter assumed the duties of a housewife just the same as any other American girl who married and settled down. As her husband’s business grew and prospered, he became interested in the local bank and served as its presiding officer and cashier. The money he invested in land, which eventually produced oil, augmented his income considerably. Together, after a visit to the exposition in 1893, they designed a home of fourteen rooms modeled after Forester’s Building at the Chicago World’s Fair. Known as Limberlost Cabin, it was their home for twenty-six years. A fire which destroyed a great deal of property in Geneva served to demonstrate Mrs. Porter’s capacity for leadership. She ran to the scene, quickly took command of those willing to assist her, formed a bucket brigade (for there was no fire-fighting equipment), and directed her neighbors in their efforts to quench the flames. In the process, she became seriously burned. Mrs. Porter, whatever her innermost strivings, gave no serious attention to writing for many years. Her interest in photography, however, developed after her family gave her a small camera for a Christmas present. She became so skilled that one manufacturer of photographic print paper asked her about the methods she employed with his product to attain such excellent results. Aside from husband, home, and family, Mrs. Porter’s life interest seems to have been that great reservoir of natural wonders, _viz._, the Limberlost Swamp immediately south of Geneva. The swamp, where a man named Limber became lost and was never found, was said to serve as a refuge for evil persons. This heavily-forested, water-soaked, primitive region harbored wildlife of great variety in its dark and treacherous bogs.