Today I went to the annual Lowry Family Reunion. This is my dad’s side of the family. We started it up about 5 years ago when there were 5 of the sisters still alive (Granny and her sisters). Now there’s just two of ’em left (Granny and Maxine). It was fun, but like always, I didn’t get to talk to the people I really didn’t know all that well.
The Shellhaas family (my mom’s mother’s mother’s family) has had a yearly reunion for as long as I’ve known it. And alas, it’s getting fewer and fewer people attending it as the family gets older. (Most of Gramma’s generation, including Gramma and her siblings, is gone now.) It’s sad, but it happens.
When I mentioned yearly reunions to elsaf and judiang, they thought once a year was a bit too often for family reunions. So I’ve decided to see what other people think about family reunions. So come, vote in my poll. And tell your friends to vote in the poll. I wanna know what people think! (I’m sorry if I didn’t anticipate your answer to one of the questions – just do the best you can.)
My family isn’t big enough to have reunions. My dad’s side consists of 8 people who are divided into three camps that aren’t speaking to each other. My mom’s side might be, but we’d have to go back several generations just to find enough people to get a group discount. It sounds like you come from a pretty large family, tho.
Granny is one of 9 siblings. Most of those siblings had kids. Some of those siblings (not Granny) had many kids. So yeah, there’s a lot of folks on the Lowry side of things. The Shorts – not a lot of relatives there. Or at least, not a lot who wish to come together for reunions. Shellhaas was a big family, but generationally now it’s very dilute. Most of the folks are third and fourth cousins. Probably even some far enough away to marry. 😉 Mom and her brothers get together a few times a year – not as often as we’d originally planned when Gramma and Grandpa passed away, but still enough to know what’s going on in their lives. We haven’t had to resort to “reunions” yet, however. Perhaps when my cousins and I are our parents age. (Most of my generation in the Andersons haven’t had kids yet. Actually, only one of my cousins on mom’s side has any kids. The rest of us are either single or married w/pets. 🙂
I’d love to see my California relatives more often, but, well, they’re all the way across the country, which makes it difficult.
My mom’s family has been having yearly family reunions for over fifty years, I think–only, like your family, they’ve been getting smaller and smaller each year as the older generation(s) die off. The past couple years, they’ve actually been moving the reunion around, as well as the timing of it. It always took place in the Topeka, Kansas area during the Independence Day hol, but this year it was in Maryland this weekend (and I didn’t get to attend because of school), and someone else wants to host it next year…I think it might give the reunions a bit of new life. I hope so.