Saturday Evening, September 24 at a Landis Homes social room
We had a very small group of 22 for the Sauder reunion this year, but that didn’t hinder us from having a lot of fun. Somehow the third and fourth generations of a family don’t find family reunions to be fun. Cousins are the ones that enjoy the reunions because it is often the only time of year they see each other. Cousins often share a lot of memories.
Singing a hymn and prayer before the meal.
The one end of the food table is empty in this picture, because the crockpots were still plugged into electric on a nearby counter.
Nineteen of us were cousins (or spouses of cousins) – there were two of Cerwin’s uncles Amos and Luke and one aunt, Luke’s wife Willamae. Uncle John is 100 years old and did not feel comfortable coming. He said it is too much commotion for him. He lives one floor above this room. Cerwin and I checked on him – making sure he still did not want to come because no one from his family was able to attend.
Dessert end of the table.
As sometimes happens after a meal, the men get together for man-talk.
They had originally been fairly close to us, but moved to the other end of the room. We ladies decided that we were too noisy. 🙂 Four of the guys are cousins, the other three are spouses of cousins.
By this time the uncles and aunt had gone home. These are all cousins. I was the only spouse of a cousin by this time. At one point they forgot that I was not a cousin. That felt good to me. I said, “I must have assimilated well during the past 53 years.”
We spent a bit of time figuring out how many living relatives there are with the Sauder’s (Cerwin’s mother’s family.) We came up with 627. Wow! We would need a large room if everyone came from all around the country.
Orpha (left) brought a few old pictures she recently found. The one below got a lot of attention as they tried to figure out who was who. The poor quality of the picture added to the difficulty.
Most of them could find themselves (or were not born yet). Cerwin is the second to right in the second row (if you count the one standing). He has his hands on his brother Elvin in front of him.. Their sister Velda thinks she is the one on the right in the back row.
I loved the laughter and memories I heard last night.
We had a relatively small family, spread all over the world. We would get together with one or another family of cousins, but never a large reunion. What an interesting event!
We certainly had a good time.
Your younger generation is missing out!!! My dad’s family gets together every other year for Labor Day weekend in Northern Indiana. We rent a campground on a small lake from Friday afternoon to Monday morning breakfast and have done this every other year since 1973 except one year when a cousin got married in August and we opted not to have the reunion that year but had it the next year instead. There were 110 of us together this year and around 65 who could have been there but weren’t. We have about 16 who never come and about 100 who almost always come. We always have such a great time together, reminiscing, playing games, swimming, etc. Saturday nights we have an auction of things we’ve made – crafts, knitting, canning, etc. – with proceeds going to pay the cooks and the meals. This helps those who find the weekend a bit expensive but want to be there. Sunday mornings we have worship service together and Sunday evenings we have a variety show with skits, music, etc. There are only two left of the second generation, but we welcomed two members of the sixth generation this year. 🙂
They certainly are missing a lot.