all right well tell me all about your reunion planning
well we uh uh this will be uh uh the reunion for not my grandfather but my great grandfather and then my great and then my grandfathers so it's a couple of generations
um and these were pioneers who came across the plains
uh-huh
and uh the families were are quite large and so we've had we spent a lot of time trying to gather up
uh names and addresses of all the tons of people that are involved
uh-huh
and so it takes a lot of time and planning
um good activity the what
are you going to do it over a weekend
are you going to do it over a weekend or
well interesting enough we're going to we're going to do it over an eight day period
uh-huh
uh they will not everyone won't be there for the whole time but the families can come in during that eight day time and kind of meet on the on the living family level
right
like i will come there kind of early and my brothers and sisters and their families will come so that we can get acquainted and then
uh it goes back the the generation before will join us and they may meet kind of individually in this camping area
uh-huh
and then uh toward the end of the week there will be two specific days when we honor these two uh
uh groups my the grandfathers and the great grandfathers
uh-huh
uh so it's kind of once more combining the whole group again
but uh it's it's it's uh it requires a lot of uh logistics for food for the people who will have to meet
uh-huh
and a lot of uh arranging for activities
what are some of the activities
uh
well uh course you want to do some kinds of things that which will help them to get to know the ancestor that you're honoring
um-hum
but besides that if you have a lot of children and and different ages you need to try to find things
that uh that they will just have like to do together so that the next time somebody says reunion they won't run like
the four winds
yeah yeah
so it has to be pretty fun too i think uh we're we're going uh going to Utah to uh uh place near Park City
uh-huh
and uh and it's a a pretty good size area where there'll be hiking and and then there will be uh
oh just uh general kinds of things like uh swimming and whatever during the uh in the area roundabout which they will do during the days when they want to
when they're not uh uh rehearsing or whatever for a part of the the play and then we'll kind of get together and and uh work out some small
oh vignettes or or uh acts or things like that Musical numbers
and the fact that we're together early during the week will help us to get together to prepare those things for the for the programs at the end of the week
yeah
so it it we're real excited about it now always before we have only had my grandfather's family and uh
we only did it for one day
uh-huh
and uh the last time we doing we were doing it every two years and we decided last time we would wait a third year because it came across so often that it was kind of hard to get there and uh
yeah
some people come from Back East and course i come from Texas so there's some of us come from quite a ways
yeah
uh and so we we had a little longer and decided to try to hold it
uh in a situation that was a little longer like a camping situation something that wasn't too expensive but
uh could be more of a vacation situation for families to come and participate in while getting to know their ancestors and relatives
um-hum
uh so that maybe they'd be attracted more to bring their families
now i've never gotten all my family to come before but this year i have uh several married daughters and and sons whose families are coming en masse so it it it looks to be a lot more interesting activity
this is what how did you pick uh
the place in Utah is it central location or
well uh the ancestors came from there
okay
and uh and we we were holding them there because there were some living ancestors up until
uh fairly recently at this point in that generation that we're honoring
there's only well my mother is ninety three and she won't go this year because it's just too hard on her
but uh and there's one other wife but all of the all of the children are now gone they they've passed away in the meantime
uh-huh
and so uh at that point we were going for that reason we were going there
but it just there just more of them there still than there are other places the rest of us are kind of strung around some but we're but you know if you if you're talking about convenient for the biggest majority it still is there
uh-huh
also we had a we had a a the member who was in charge of it in general this time had some access to this park which was a big factor
uh
whether we'll be able to do it there again but there are other kind of arrangements like in in uh
in some of the areas in Colorado you know where they ski in the winter time you can make some pretty good arrangements for uh for group uh activities and things like that
how
so we might do something like that also sometimes universities will will rent out uh areas for doing things like that
yeah
okay how long in advance did you set the date
but uh
well we knew generally the time of year uh that we wanted to do it in three years ago but we could not set the date until the first of January this year because this park where they have it
uh they allow people in the vicinity to make their arrangements ahead of time and so we kind of had to take what was left
uh-huh
and uh so we we feel pretty fortunate to have gotten in at all but uh
yeah
uh i think you need to plan on you need to be sure and plan uh at least a year ahead of time or you're going to lose people
you know they have to plan their vacations that far ahead a little bit
right
if not exactly at least know generally what they're going to do
okay
well it's kind of important to to know quite a while ahead of time
uh the last time we had one uh i was in charge of it and my goal was to write a history of my
of my father and his brothers and sisters
uh-huh
there was a history of his father and mother but there was no history on them so i spent the two years before that compiling and and writing the history and then we gave it out at that
this year we're not we're we're combining it in the and the parents before and so we're going to do some um
uh acting out of of these groups and try to help them get better acquainted and mostly it's a different kind of thing so we're we're just kind of playing it by ear and seeing how it goes i think
wow sounds like you guys are uh your family's really into family
but
yeah we're kind of like we kind of uh well we like each other and we liked our families and so we figure they the little kids ought to get to know each other and
and we are scattered enough there i have several children who live here but i also have children in in uh Nevada and Arizona
uh-huh
so it's it's really neat to be able to get acquainted get around with them you know
wow
and you're younger
yes
you have any family at all
uh well i'm married and uh my wife is from a large family
but my family my mother's
uh-huh
living and she has
one brother that has no children that's living and my deceased father has one sister that has one child with and no other children so i have like four relatives
not very many huh do you do you enjoy your do you enjoy your your wife's large family though
not very many no
it too it's it was a large transition let me tell you because they had to meet one person they only had to meet me and i had to probably meet twenty five or thirty people
was it is it
yeah
yeah
so getting names and faces and jobs and where they live and everything straight was a quite a task uh
yeah
i i still kind of balk at it because they're really into family too and like
you don't feel quite involved huh
well they try to involve me and if i allow myself to be involved you know i'll fit into the picture but uh they uh they make a big deal out of everything
yeah
well you have to try it you'll like it
yeah uh i guess so uh
it really is quite a lot of fun and uh um uh
yeah
uh
i'm just not used to it because our family has a reunion about once ever two years and and it's about a
yeah
you know ten people show up so no one there's my age so i just kind of sit there and hang out but uh Carla has a lot of cousins
yeah
yeah yeah
that are our age and you know so we get
yeah
cousins get really get really close sometimes almost closer than brothers and sisters sometimes
it's yeah it seems that happened with their family
especially
right especially if they live fairly close together so they get a chance to see each other
right
it's kind of special
yeah there family was pretty well centralized everyone kind of stayed around the the uh the grandparents
um
uh-huh
for at least for a while at least while they were growing up
yeah
now they've kind of moved out a little bit but not too much
yeah
so
