News of my Cousin Ken’s
death recently opened my memory bank and treasures poured out. Family
gatherings were a regular occurrence during my childhood. My family usually lived hours away from the
rest, so anytime I was with cousins it was a big deal. In remembering Ken, I pulled out the
following piece that I wrote a few years ago about our extended family
reunions. It gives Ken well-deserved
notoriety!
I’m hoping my cousins will
enjoy it and that you, too, will be reminded of pleasant times, childhood
antics, crazy relatives and lots of love.
The Harrington Reunion
circa 1960
The car trunks were filled
with suitcases, golf clubs, footballs, fishing poles, tackle boxes, bowling
ball bags, food to pass and snacks to munch.
Tucked away in the suitcases were the new “reunion outfits” that would
appear sometime during the weekend.
Teenage girls said good-bye
to their boyfriends and guys said good-bye to their girlfriends, because
girlfriends and boyfriends were not allowed on this weekend. It wasn’t just that they weren’t invited,
they weren’t allowed. And although some
girl might pout about leaving her boyfriend for a couple of days, she got over
it in the first few miles because traditions are traditions and they create
families and that’s what this whole weekend was about. Family and tradition. She would write to her boyfriend both days
she was gone and someday when they were engaged he could come to the family
reunion, also. But definitely not until
they were engaged.
Families from Indiana, Ohio and Michigan piled into cars,
started their engines and headed for Smallbone’s, a resort in lower Michigan.
This vacation sanctuary consisted of cabins of varying sizes clustered on one
side of a small lake. Since it was September,
it was officially closed, but the resort, already tired from its hectic summer
season, was now going to see its most challenging weekend of the year. A hundred people attending the Harrington
Reunion were converging on it. The beds
were made with clean sheets that would later be short sheeted and covered with
rice or cornflakes. The bathrooms were
spotless and ready for toothpaste on the door handles and shaving cream
dripping down the sparkling mirrors. But
all of that was yet to come and it would come under the protection of darkness.
The excitement in the cars
was growing as kids anticipated the lake with a fishing dock, row boats and
more cousins than they could play with in one day. It would be a day of great freedom. The adults were always around, but they were
involved in their own “traditions” and the day just kinda flowed. Everyone knew that boundaries were out there
somewhere, but other than that there was great autonomy. That is until something went wrong. Then the
kids had a few scapegoats that could take the adults’ chastisement.
Ken, Charles and Harley were names frequently
hollered by the mothers sitting on the bank keeping watch over the kids. Keeping
watch over the kids part of the time, for they had their own traditions to
fulfill. They chatted about their lives, laughed, knitted, embroidered,
crocheted and passed around containers of baked goods. That was usually when
the kids ran up from the dock and put their worm-crusted hands into the
containers with a female voice screeching, “Get your hands out of there! Here
let me hand you one.” The ladies sitting
on the lawn chairs would laugh and the woman holding the container joined them
with a bit of faked exasperation.
For a group of second and
third cousins, the kids all knew each other quite well and saw each other a few
times a year. But this was called the
Harrington Reunion which meant there were cousins imported from Michigan that showed up
for the weekend. Fortunately most of
these were babies or adults, so they stayed on the bank visiting with the
mothers, grandmothers and great aunts. Occasionally
a younger cousin came with this “other” group and the aunts would call the kids
from the row boats, introduce them to the newly-arrived, we’ve-never-seen-her-before
cousin and the kids were then expected to “include” her in their
activities.
Now that was hard, because
the “cousins” had been together year after year in this same place and they had
their rhythm. They had their ins and outs, their ups and downs with each other
and they knew who was in charge and who the followers were. Absorbing a newbie wasn’t easy. And besides,
if she hasn’t been here before will she ever be here again? So it was mostly up to her if she felt a part
of the group or not.
If there were any men
around, they were stragglers playing horseshoes or walking through the autumn
canopy. The vast majority of men were
still on the golf course. They wouldn’t
be seen for hours. They would make it
back just about the time that the “ladies who were watching the kids” started
complaining about how long the men were gone.
“How many holes of golf are
they playing?” someone would eventually ask agitatedly.
It was funny how the point
of exasperation and the return of the golfers was so well synchronized. It was as if a checkered flag went down on
the golf course warning the men that their time was up.
Women didn’t golf; at least
not at the reunion. Oh, maybe they
could, but they didn’t. It was another
of those unwritten traditions. The men
golfed, played horseshoes, football in the afternoon and competed. When it came to sports, everyone of the clan was
highly competitive. It always appeared
as an amiable competition.
The real competition came in
the “girls’ cabin.” When a girl turned
thirteen she was allowed to stay away from her parents and sleep in the “girls’
cabin.” This seems like a
straightforward rule, like not being able to attend the reunion unless you are
engaged or married to a member of the family, but it never went without
challenge.
“ But I’m going to be thirteen next month,” one
female cousin whined with an accompanying look of “I can’t believe you’re doing
this to me!”
“But Nadine is staying and
she wants me to stay with her,” another younger cousin feign.
Then there were the bed
assignments. Would the older girls stay
on one side of the duplex and the younger ones stay on the other? Maybe not, because that splits up first
cousins and here we meet the less than amicable rub. We were all one family but there were
branches in the family tree and those were best observed among the teen-age
girls. Doesn’t that seem understandable?
Clothes, looks, boyfriends, cheerleaders, music, grades, (well maybe not, that
was too nerdy) were all points of competitiveness and comparison. So at the
beginning of the weekend the teenage girls staked out their territory and
claimed their loyalties.
Then through typical girly
activities like styling hair, polishing nails, changing clothes and talking
about boys, the walls came down.
Probably what coalesced them the most were the teenage boy cousins who
were continually pesky.
By the end of the weekend all
the girls were close again, just like their grandparents, parents and aunts and
uncles wanted them to be. This was exactly the reason for these family reunions.
There were enough of the
“imported” relatives that it was hard for kids to keep them all straight. But there was one that every child knew by
name, Aunt Goldie. And of course why did
they recognize her immediately?
Certainly her tall, lean frame and her white hair distinguished her, but
the children remembered her from one year to next by the Tootsie Roll Pops she
carried in her bag. For a woman who
never had children of her own, she knew how to attract them. She was a tradition. Those dozens of children would remember her
long into their adulthood.
Throughout the weekend there
were pictures taken and pictures shared and a movie camera running almost
continuously. The soundless movie camera
was very perceptive in catching for posterity the clowns, the hams, the shy,
the strong, the awkward, the athletic, the talkative, the fashionable, the
moody, and the crying. All would be remembered more readily for what the movies
recorded than for who they really were.
Harley, Ken and Charles
usually commandeered the rowboats and if you wanted to ride in one, you had to
make friends with them. It was another
smokescreen of family cohesiveness. But
they knew how to row the boats and how to give orders for rowing the boats and
the younger children were happy to have a seat in one. As the boats crashed into each other, those
three guys took command and often more risk than necessary to get the boats untangled. Then the kids heard from the bank, “Harley,
don’t stand up in that boat!” “Kenneth,
be careful!” They were watching.
For most of my childhood, my
dad’s first cousin Deantha had been the family secretary. Later her sister Caroline filled the role. This
position carried all authority and a lot of work. There was an official president and vice president
of the family, but they were mere figure heads.
Voting them in was a tradition of the annual business meetings. But the secretary books never changed
hands. On Saturday after making the room
assignments, Caroline updated her family book with new births, confirming
wedding dates and taking a count of reunion attendees. Later she would tally the cost and announce
what each family unit had to pay for the weekend. Her small frame wielded much authority.
Newlyweds attending the
reunion for the first time had to go through initiation. One never knew what this would entail, but
the reputation of it was enough to turn any new member of the family away. Under
the shield of night, people were harassed in their sleep, thrown into the lake,
dressed clownishly and paraded through the local bowling alley, unable to get
out of their cabin in the morning and whatever the devious minds of the family
could concoct. The only deterrent to any
of the pranks played at night was a sleeping baby. If you had a sleeping baby in your room or in
the other half of the cabin, you were exempt from practical jokes. Therefore newlyweds usually got private
cabins.
Supper of barbecued beef
sandwiches was served after the golf, the rowboats, the multi-generational
football game and the horseshoe roundup.
This meal was prepared by the aunts who owned large electric roasters. The
roaster brigade moved through the generations.
Seldom did anyone retire, but they did die off. The daughter would inherit the roaster and
the responsibility. It was important to
have the family together and this crew worked hard to make it happen. Others
helped by bringing the best and gooiest desserts to share.
The local bowling alley was
hit en masse as the family descended upon it, occupying most of the lanes. Some members of the family carted their own
bowling ball, bag and shoes. Others
stood in line to rent shoes. The kids ran around lifting bowling balls off the
racks, most of them too heavy for them to handle, until they found just the
right one. Bowling skill levels were varied, but the thud of dropping the14-pound
sphere, the rattle of falling pins and the hollow sound of the gutter balls created
a wonderful ambiance for cheering, chatting, bantering and nurturing
relationships that would mark the family for generations.
Even after turning in their
bowling shoes, the night was not over. The pranksters were just stepping into
their prime time. As stealth as they
tried to be, they could easily be detected and identified by their giggles. Often accompanied by their younger protégés
they were usually caught in a flashlight beam by a roving patrol. Their
embellished stories were whispered around at breakfast amidst guffawing
laughter.
The card players pulled out
the Rook cards and stayed up past all the babies, the grandparents, the newlyweds,
the teenagers and maybe even the pranksters.
Whether it’s tradition or
habit, form or value, Sunday mid-morning the family gathered for church. All were dressed better than on Saturday,
maybe even wearing their new “reunion outfit.” It was casual compared to their
typical Sunday attire, except for the few that still donned a white shirt and
tie.
The congregation of one
hundred or more family members crowded into the lodge. After congregational singing, for there were several
fine musicians, one of the ministers in the family gave the sermon. If there was no pastor in attendance, one of
the many skillful public speakers could deliver an inspirational scripture-based
message. At the service’s conclusion,
family business issues were addressed. Announcements by Caroline of engagements, new
births and pregnancies were met with applause, laughter and occasionally
surprise.
The offering was taken and
designated to a specific project that someone in the family represented or a
financial need of family members.
Dinner was served by the
Smallbone's staff and we sat with our extended family at a traditional Sunday
dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetable and dessert.
Over time, the kids outgrew
the rowboats. The reunion moved to other
sites. The pranksters grew older and went to bed about the same time as the
babies. Aunt Goldie’s generation became
a branch on the family tree. Eventually
the reunions grew few and far between. But for the generations that met at
Smallbone’s, there was a lasting bond among them. Life took them in many and varied directions
but the memories of family reunions went with them.
Do you have a family reunion that meets regularly or
meets at all? I’d love to hear about
it. Your comments might spur someone to
initiate such a memorable time for their own family.
