ARE FORMAL FAMILY REUNIONS NOW OUT OF DATE?

[Kinman]

My mother's side were country folk and they would get together for family reunions, I remember at least one as a child and another in the past twenty years. The only times my father's side got together was weddings and funerals, it was an old family joke. I had a cousin drop in yesterday, haven't seen her in well over thirty years. I am now the oldest living member of my family on both sides. I was able to tell my cousin what the names of her great grandparents were, she had no idea. Alot of that stuff is lost on the younger kids, they don't care to know, it never dawns on them and to a certain degree...Hey good for them. Hanging on to the past really doesn't do us any good, as long as you don't forget your mistakes.

 

[LVSteve]

My wife came from a large family and I was an only child. My wife was 12 years younger than me. We attended Her family get togethers, diiners, reunions, etc.
My wife developed terminal cancer and I was her care giver for over 2.5 years. After the funeral the sister-inlaws, brother inlaws, etc came to the house, not for a visit but to see if they could get my wife's jewlery, clothes, etc. When they discovered that my wife's belonging were going to our children they all left and I never saw or heard from them again. if was like I never existed.

Sounds like what happened with my great uncle. His "family" (the quotes are deliberate) had disowned him in the 30s or 40s for being a jazz musician. Somehow they all came scurrying out from under the baseboards when they learned he was sick and that he might have my deceased great-aunt's jewelry.

Came the day my aunt got a call from one them that ran something like, "George is dead, you need to come up to town and do something about his damned dog." My aunt arrived at the house to find it largely stripped with clear evidence of where the sideboards had been jemmied in search of great-aunt's jewelry. The parting word from the last "family" was something like, "We locked the crazy dog in the spare room. Best you get it put down 'cuz he's nuts." My aunt managed to get the dog under control somehow but, sadly, nobody in our family could take the dog, and given his temperament, he ended up taking the one way trip to the vet.

Also in the spare room in the middle of the floor was the one item the "family" had not cared for, the last of George's trumpets. I still have it.

 

[ZGrand]

When I was a kid, my father's family had a large annual reunion. Everyone would bring a dish (good southern cooking and fabulous desserts), the kids would play ball, and the adults would sit and catch up. But the best thing was my great uncle would bring a big wash tub, fill it with water, lemons, and sugar to make gallons of lemonade. I don't know he got the proportions so perfect, but I think I drank half of it myself. If I could have, I would have dove in and drank my way out. That was many years ago -- I sure miss it.

 

[S&W ucla]

I haven't been to one since I was a kid. They've been replaced by Facebook and other social media.

That's what I liked about the ReUnions, you only had to see them ONCE a year. Now they send you **** year round, lol.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Closest I got to a "family reunion" with my old man's family was my paternal grandmother's funeral in 1960. Met a man with the same first name and rare German last name as me. IIRC he wasn't that interested in making my acquaintance.
Ben Franklin said "If you want to get the measure of a man's character share an inheritance with him."
When I entered Cyberspace back in 2001 I looked up the old man on Genealogy.com, found a message from a half sister looking for my brother and I-had our names right. A little communication, learned a litttle about what happened with that side of the family, found out that we are "officially" uncles, or half-uncles or whatever. No communication since.

 

[DWalt]

My last reunion was the 40th anniversary of my high school graduating class. It was so depressing on several levels that I vowed to never attend another. And so I have not. Probably not enough members still alive to bother having another one.

 

[DWalt]

When I entered Cyberspace back in 2001 I looked up the old man on Genealogy.com, found a message from a half sister looking for my brother and I-had our names right. A little communication, learned a litttle about what happened with that side of the family, found out that we are "officially" uncles, or half-uncles or whatever. No communication since.

For similar genealogy fill-in-the-blanks reasons I have contacted some relatives that I never knew very well or even met. Most showed little interest in talking to me and in a few cases I met overt hostility. I had only one friendly conversation which was with a first cousin I had never met or spoken with before.

 

[Nevada Ed]

My last reunion was the 40th anniversary of my high school graduating class. It was so depressing on several levels that I vowed to never attend another. And so I have not. Probably not enough members still alive to bother having another one.

You feel bad;

This will be my 62nd HS reunion if it happens.

The way it is going, we might only need two tables.

 

[Rustyt1953]

I am now the patriarch of my clan. The logistics and cost of ferrying this lot across the pond to The Realm are prohibitive.

We use Al Gore's internet instead.

 

[venomballistics]

You feel bad;

This will be my 62nd HS reunion if it happens.

The way it is going, we might only need two tables.

I'm nowhere near that figure, but for certain reasons pertaining to my former local culture, the mortality rate has been quite high.
Plenty of overdose with a smattering of suicide.
I really don't miss my home town

 

[mtgianni]

My wife's family does one but it is a 4 day camp out at the lake. My family has had a few family meetings but it's rare.

 

[Golddollar]

Thank you everybody for your comments. They certainly gave me a lot to think about.

With that being said, today we are having the family reunion at the town park. I wanted to make sure we had one this year because my aunt and uncle who recently passed away, who I have heard described as "fiercely loyal to family", were the ones who organized the family gatherings for a lot of years. I plan to make a tribute to them today for what they have done.

 

[rockquarry]

Based only on my own experience, I think very few under the age of forty have had any exposure to family reunions. They've become a thing of the past for many families. Old folks die, and regrettably their traditions die with them.

Comgratulations to families that continue to pursue these events.

 

[Skeet 028]

We had a reunion every year...there were sometimes well over a hundred people there. But my family had lived mostly on the Eastern Shore of Maryland since the mid 1600s...some of 'em looked that old too. Course I was 8 or so. We had relatives from all over the DelMarVa peninsula..Some of the yankees and confederates wouldn't speak to each other either. We had relatives from Tangier and Smith Islands in the Chesapeake Bay that weren't real friendly.. because of the oyster wars....But by the time I was 21 or so the reunions pretty much died out with the old people dying off. The reunions were the only way back then to keep up with family whether you liked 'em or not...They WERE family. Some of 'em had family bibles with lines of relations. I still have some records of my mothers side of the family going back to the 1700s and earlier by reference. We had some long livers in the family. One great aunt got a military pension from the Civil war. She died at 102 or 103

 

[Model 19 6"]

Coming up in July my wife's side are having a reunion. Have not been to one in a looong time.

 

[rwsmith]

Some demographic groups...

...still prize family reunions. The last one I went to I was an early teenager and didn't know a soul. But the food was good. That was pretty much us the whole way through. We got with a FEW extended famiy a few times when we were young, but later never had contact with anybody. Close knit family, huh?