A Good Day, The Weber-Kuhn Reunion

Seeing faces that bring back memories.  Gathering hugs and smiles from cousins, aunts and uncles.  Recalling childhood  activities. Reminiscing while sorting through old photos.   Catching up on children, grandchildren and great grands.  Restoring family ties. Remembering those who are gone.  All of these things were wrapped into one day last Saturday at the Weber-Kuhn Reunion, a gathering of my maternal family (Nancy).

It’s been quite a while since this family held a reunion. In fact, no one is sure about that date. Some of us are better than others at staying in touch.  Of course, family funerals can be a form of a reunion. But, not really.  So, a few of the Weber clan decided it was about time that we see who would be interested in a casual family gathering to catch up on life.  We weren’t certain how it would go, but we would try.

The answer came quick. Just a few minutes from the time that the first family members strolled in it was obvious that the planning committee had no worry about the day’s success. The conversations spread quickly. Cameras captured new family photos everywhere. The precious three-week-old, little girl received cuddles.  Historical photos and stories occupied many curious cousins.  Bidding on the silent auction items was furious. Corn hole had several energetic participants. Quilt squares were created with care for a family history quilt.  All in all, the Webers had a great day sharing laughs, memories and delicious food, too. 

As I mentioned, one of the popular activities at last Saturday’s event was looking through old photos. Coincidentally, a couple of my photos snapped at the reunion matched up perfectly with those of days gone by. Naturally, these were the photos that had to make it to the blog.

First, below are my cousins Marilyn and Bill…..along with their photo from a few years ago. Wow, don’t we age well!

Then, here I am with my cousins Mary Anne and Rosie in about 1956.  Fast forward to last Saturday and I have a photo with each of them, plus their brother, Jim.  Good memories all around.

Of course, the basis of all families are those who led the way, fostered those earlier gatherings and continue to spread the love. Two of our family’s leading ladies are Peg Stull and Ruth Weber. Here are those two special aunts sharing a few moments at the reunion. They are super people.

 

To close this post, I believe I should give a salute to the six Weber siblings who brought us all together in the beginning.

 They are in the photo below in front of the home where they all grew up at 2160 Singleton Street, Indianapolis: Bob, Gin, Rose, Dolly, Harry (Ruth’s husband),   and Peg (above).  Fortunately, our family reunion also included Uncle Mel, Dolly’s husband, and Aunt Emma,  Bob’s wife. They all brought strength to this family.  Sure was nice to have everybody together for the day and to remember those passed who helped make  us who we are.

We’ll gather again next summer and hope to have many more good days like this one.

Sisters Day

Recently my sisters, Martha (“Marti”) and Linda (“Lin”), and I had our own Sisters Day.  Put together a birthday lunch and the Indiana State Fair with two sisters.  Voila!…Sisters Day. 

We started with a celebration of our sister, Lin’s, 59th birthday.   She is still employed , and couldn’t get the day off, or it would have been a threesome day at the Fair.  Regardless, we found ways to make the day work out. Marti, Lin, my niece, Nikki, and I met for lunch at Red Lobster.  Meeting for lunch at this restaurant has become somewhat of a tradition since it’s located across the street from Lin and Nikki’s office and convenient for me and Marti.  In fact, Lin is recognized by the wait staff as soon as she walks in the door.  I suspect she makes quite a few other visits with folks other than her sisters. Let me say there could be parts of her personality that are memorable. Our waiter, Travis, even surprised her with a bowl of whipped cream drizzled with strawberry syrup and topped with a candle.  Yes, whipped cream!  (They were out of ice cream and cake.)  Seems to work….she sure enjoyed it.

After lunch, Marti and I headed over to the State Fair.  We realized that day we had never been to the fair together.  Unbelievable, but true.  Well, we made up for it.  Some of our stops, for instance, were in the coliseum for the hunt seat competition, the Purdue soybean exhibit, and the displays of ribbon-winning crafts, such as crocheting, knitting, jewelry, photography and quilts. That’s just mentioning a few.  We saw our share of cows, donkeys, mules, and horses.  We enjoyed the tremendous lego creations that reproduced the Indianapolis 500 and Lucas Oil Stadium and paused a few minutes along our route for the parade of Clydesdales. Oh yes, don’t want to leave out the “German Experience.”  This is a display created for this specific fair covering the German heritage in Indiana.  Since we are through-and-through of German descent, this was particularly interesting for us. We also got our exercise walking through the vendors and the tunnel under the infield of the race track over to the Pioneer Village to watch blacksmith and spinning demonstrations.  The workout was a good thing because we listened to music while we ate a delicious, humongous bowl of hand-dipped ice cream.

Eight hours from the time we roamed through the front gate with no real idea of the specific stops we would make, we shuffled by the corn dogs and ears of corn to find our car.  We did decide to forego the fried green beans until another day.  But, we still felt we had a healthy serving of Indiana, at the best state fair, that is.

All in all, I’ve concluded Sisters Days are good for any sisters to have.