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Reunion activities-9
These activities are from many reunions, reported first in Reunions magazine. We invite you to e-mail us your special reunion activities.
Cemeteries are for the living
Cemeteries play an important role in many family reunions. A visit to the cemetery can be in reverence to ancestors, for a memorial service or an opportunity to get family members involved in cleaning and planting. There are many things you can do at a cemetery that you can’t do, or do as well, elsewhere. It is a place to contemplate and for many, relax and enjoy the quiet. Read headstones and markers. Learn about people buried there. Make connections; find family members; count generations in one cemetery, imagine and speculate about the significance of their lives many years ago.
Cemeteries have become favored places for joggers, walkers, pet owners, bicyclists, bird watchers, beginning drivers, artists and others seeking solitude and nature.
A reverential attitude is the least sign of respect required at any cemetery. It’s probably wise to talk with or remind children (and some adults) about respect before entering a cemetery. Though it is said that hide-and-seek was invented in a cemetery and that can be joyously noisy.
Here’s a great suggestion from the American-French Genealogy Society to consider for a cemetery visit. Make a card with your name, phone number and e-mail address and the note: researching this ancestor. Laminate it and put it on a stake at the grave; florist stakes will do. When someone finds your card, they can contact you.
Cemetery owners are eager to have visitors to their park-like destinations. Visits take the mystery and fear out of what one finds at a cemetery. And while cemeteries will always be places of grief and mourning, they are also places to celebrate life. Most of the residents would have wanted it that way. EW
Chippiannock Cemetery: epitaphs brought to life
A special historical tour at Chippiannock Cemetery in Rock Island, Illinois, will be offered September 8, 2001. The tour, sponsored by the Rock Island Preservation Commission and Chippiannock Cemetery Heritage Foundation, features 14 historical Rock Island characters speaking lyrical vignettes, portraying interesting people buried at the cemetery. The tour highlights unique landscape and funerary art of the 146 year-old cemetery which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Thespians tell stories of Rock Island’s famous sons and daughters in glowing detail complete with costumes and an occasional prop. Past epitaphs have featured merchants, bankers, inventors, African American Civil War heroes, exemplary women, early race car drivers, winning boxers, pioneers, famous brewers and lumber barons and even a mass murderer. Contact Jill Doak, 309-732-2900 or the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau, 800-747-7800; www.visitquadcities.com.
In honor of memories
by Virginia Coty/Jeffords
In 2000 my family rekindled an old tradition of family outings, something we had not done for quite some time. I remember when our immediate family, plus grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins got together at least every couple of months for a party, picnic or birthday. But as years have gone by, get-togethers have gotten further and further apart.
We faced a death in the family that in itself was not pleasant, but did provide a pleasurable outcome by bringing a large part of the family together. First for the funeral and then again for a special trip to a remote lake to spread the ashes. It was a memorable time spent fishing, talking, playing games and telling stories. Some memories weren't warm and fuzzy, but were definitely scrapbook material. Mosquitoes swarmed us nearly the whole time. Our four-wheelers were stuck in muddy bogs for hours and we bounced up and down on hard trails reminiscent of buckboards and the old west. This trip is a memory we will hold dear in our hearts as we do the memory of our brother Walter.
About the author
Virginia Coty/Jeffords is a forty year resident of Fairbanks, Alaska. She’s a wife of twenty-two years and mother of three. She "loves the Lord, my family, friends, writing, computers and my digital camera."
Cemetery central to reunion
Without plans for internment, Carolyn Sigler Schellang’s only sister Billie Linda Sigler Taylor died in 1995. Carolyn wanted to bury her sister in the Sigler Cemetery in Shelby County, Tennessee, on land donated in February 1870 by Littleton Smith Sigler and deeded to Sigler heirs.
Carolyn, of Pensacola, Florida, discovered that few family members even knew about the cemetery. She was dismayed by the overgrown weeds and broken headstones. Maintenance had become too much for family members who were trying to take care of it. She has since found and notified family about the cemetery and has resurrected a family reunion at the site. With money donated by "found" kin they’ve built a fence, a new concrete drive and installed a wrought iron half moon over the entrance with the Sigler name in it. She credits her cousin, Ray Sigler, and uncle, Joe Sigler, for their hard work and letting kin know their donations were spent only for cemetery care.
Family rallies
Andrew Elton Williams was buried at South Butler Methodist Cemetery, McKenzie, Alabama. There was a group willing to refurbish the grounds but needed funds. The Williams Family Reunion newsletter publicized the need and request and the needed money was raised. This family newsletter was vital to identify the descendants of Williams according to Sissy Williams Howell.
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