Family Reunions Are Always Great Ways to Catch Up After Years Have Passed

We have been away from home for the past week, traveling for a family reunion. My two younger sisters made the arrangements, and since they both live in southeastern Missouri, that's where we went. My husband and I traveled by car in rain almost the entire way. The first days were much warmer than what we'd left in Montana. My sister still has cherry tomatoes ripening in her yard, as well as lettuce and okra. Flowers are blooming. I had to take photos. But the rain and cooler weather followed us.

I'd originally thought this reunion was only going to be for my immediate siblings and their and our children. However, Cece and Charlie went above and beyond the call of duty. They searched out our cousins, most of whom we hadn't seen since we were young children.

You might think it strange that we didn't really know our own cousins, but there's a simple explanation. Our father was a career Air Force officer. We moved from one assignment to the next every two to three years. Two of those assignments were to Germany. Usually, Dad would have a month of accrued time off between assignments, which, coupled with allowed travel time, let us visit with those family members that were along our route.

Our father had three brothers and one sister. In order, they were Fay, Lindley, Charles (Dad), Audentia and Francis. Unfortunately, only Aunt Frances, Uncle Fay's widow, is still with us. She's blind and housebound, so she didn't attend. My laddermom, Lois, is still with us, and lives in Cape Girardeau, where our reunion was held. (She never wanted to be known as a stepmom, because of the unfortunate connotations associated in fairytales with evil stepmom. So she decided we should think of her as our laddermom. To me she's mom, having held that position longer than my birth mom did. I was 25 when my mother died, and Lois was my dad's wife for 28 years, and is still my other mom after 38 years. She's the only grandmother on my side my children know). We loved seeing her again, even though we had to share our limited time with her with my other siblings. Her daughters, our stepsisters, Kathy and Jan, were also in and out at our various reunion functions.

I hardly remember visiting Uncle Fay and Aunt Frances in Maryland, although I know we did. My older brother does remember stopping there much better than me. Fay and Frances had three children, Frannie, Michael, and Bill. Cousin Frannie lives in Georgia, but didn't attend. Unfortunately, Michael passed away a few years ago. Bill had planned to attend, but a co-worker's father was diagnosed with cancer, and so he had to stay and work. We had gotten reacquainted with him several years ago when he flew from the DC area to Missouri for my youngest sister's wedding. I'd also spent a little time with him and Michael, and their parents, when our middle daughter moved to DC for work.

I know we visited Uncle Lindley and Aunt Ellen in Lee's Summit, Mo., but I can't place any specific memories with their home. Again, my older brother and sister (Sue passed away almost a year ago) have/had memories of those trips, but there was so much going on I didn't ask Paul. Lindley had six daughters and one son. Lindley Jr's health didn't allow him to attend, but his five surviving daughters did. Three of them had attended my dad's funeral 11 years ago, but didn't stay long. It was great to meet Connie, Jackie, Laura, Melissa, and Andrea as adults.

I do remember stopping to see Aunt Audentia and Uncle Mel in Omaha. Their daughters are Linda and Elaine. Mostly I remember they had a large yellow cat named Banana. Aunt Audie always reminded me very much of Dad's mom, grandmother Emma. Now her daughter, Elaine, reminds me of her mom. When Uncle Mel retired, they moved to Vancouver, Wash., to be near their daughters, who were both on the coast. Some years ago, Dennis was on a board that had a convention in Portland. I contacted Aunt Audie, and arranged to spend a day with her family while Dennis was in meetings. We had a grand time seeing a traveling Smithsonian exhibit on King Tut. Vancouver has a sister city in China, and so we also went to the Chinese gardens and had tea outdoors there in spite of the cool, misty, damp weather. So I clearly remember cousins Linda and Elaine. It was really nice to catch up with them.

Now, stopping in Ponca, Neb., to see Uncle Francis and Aunt Shirley is clearly etched in my memory. Francis had a small farm, with a few milk cows (I was unable to get a single drop of milk from them, but my cousins could milk like pros, and could shoot streams of milk to the begging barn cats). They also had a few pigs, kept behind an electric fence that we were warned about, but I had to test it with a leaf on a stick. It worked. I think they also had chickens, but that's an iffy memory. Francis and Shirley had also had a roadside burger joint, named Woody's, that my brother remembers better than I. I did remember from a later trip, when he worked part-time at an ice cream factory, he brought home ice cream treats that weren't just right enough to sell, but still tasted just wonderful.

Francis and Shirley's firstborn, their only son, Clark, had some birth defect upon birth. It was all hush hush, treated as a shameful secret, as though his parents had done something wrong and God was punishing them with this child. At that time, the doctors insisted he'd just be an emotional and financial drain on them, and said he needed to be institutionalized. They didn't expect him to have a long life anyway. Doctors were experts in such things, and so they gave up Clark. After Clark, they had Kathy, Patricia, Mary, Deb, Susan, and Cheryl. Long after Uncle Francis had died, Cheryl managed to track Clark down, and Aunt Francis got to spend time with the son she'd always wondered about. He was living in a group home, and getting along just fine. Shirley knew him for two years before he passed away. I'm so glad that we, as a country, have progressed beyond this mentality.

Kathy, Pat, and Susan attended this reunion. It was great to see them again. We definitely needed more time than a single weekend together.

And, of course, both my surviving sisters and my brother, with their spouses and some children, were there. Our three daughters attended, and spent a great deal of time with their cousins who are in the same age range.

We had family members there from Vancouver Wash., Portland, Ore., Lawton, Iowa, West Point, Ga., Lee's Summit, Mo., Columbia, Ill., Belden, Neb., Riverview, Fla., Aurora, Ill., Tucson Ariz., Glasgow, as well as Jackson and Cape Girardeau, Mo. We are hoping our next reunion will be in Nebraska, and we can visit the homeplace of our Woodford grandparents.

Not once during this reunion did politics nor religion separate us. I know we have many different beliefs and opinions, yet we are still family and we all want this country to continue, as we do our families. We can learn to get along. We need to remember that we are all still Americans first.