David,
I just found this on the computer. I had written it in August 2005, after the reunion and just before classes had started. Just 1,500 words are too few for even a summary and much too brief to mention every event I recall or person who attended each year. I haven’t made any alterations although I can see many are needed. Thanks for any comments or recommendations for changes. I hope you are contributing something, too. Weren’t they wanting it somewhat shorter? I’ve forgotten now…..Phil
Any people and any society profits, indeed continues to exist, if they are grounded in history—understanding who they are and where they have come from. Renewals of this knowledge can take many forms—history books, documentary film, music, photography, folklore. Reunions with people you have known forever are another.
When I write about the Johns family reunions, I’m mindful that they formally began in the 1970s with a weekend picnic in Chadron State Park. There, the idea of meeting biennially was formulated and Fort Robinson State Park was settled on for the site. But I must begin with reunions a half century ago—those usually summer occasions sometimes prompted by visits from the most “far-away” of the family—Milford, from faraway Richland, Washington—back to Grandma’s house in Harrison.
On reflection, our national “distribution” in those days seems extraordinarily odd in the 21st century. Harold, Mary and family came from distant Bassett, Nebraska. (We knew it was far away because it was in the next time zone). Audrey, Harold and family were somewhat closer, but still distant enough that visits were infrequent, sometimes because the best “traveling season” coincided with the most busy time growing and harvesting wheat. In the 1950s, Ruth and Sam, Don and Larry were four blocks away; Phyllis then unmarried, lived there, too. We often visited there—it is where I first learned that television also had sound, not just a picture like I had seen in the Gamble’s store window. It is where I remember watching the Presidential election returns in the not-so-close race between Dwight Eisenhower (seemingly, nearly everyone’s candidate) and Adlai Stevenson (presumably with the support of the family’s sole Democrat, Harold Hood—and my father’s family’s sole Democrat, Bud Hoblit). I fell suddenly ill from Asian flu there, becoming sick at a terrible time, when the “big boys” (Don and Larry) were playing Monopoly with Steve and me. Once, when Mom was hospitalized, Dad was at work and Steve at school, in the adjacent shop, I built a foot stool under the careful direction of Sam—my first “construction” effort. We watched Sputnik from the front lawn. And it was “headquarters” for the memorable celebration of Granddad and Grandma’s 50th wedding anniversary. (“Wow! Fifty years married. Gee, if I were to even LIVE that long….”)
But it was at Grandma’s house in Harrison where most reunions occurred. Granddad would go across the street and down the alley to the chicken house and select some good fryers the day before. Grandma would dab them in a special mixture of flour and spices and throw each piece into iron skillets on the stove. The aroma of frying chicken temporarily overwhelmed the fragrance of geraniums, growing in Grandma’s “plant room” on the south of the dining room and Granddad’s Prince Albert wisping from his brown shined wooden pipe (and the cigarette smoke of nearly every adult male in the family).
In summer, the main action was always outside. Steve, Michele, Tim and I explored the back reaches of what seemed like a massive yard—the white chicken house, northeast and closest to the house, the white-painted trellis serving as entrances onto a “croquet-quality” lawn north of the house, and the well-tended short white retaining wall restraining the open space across the driveway east from the house. Oh, and the raspberries planted at the north end of the driveway, formed an impenetrable barrier between the white chicken house and the house, the hollyhocks in full flower slapping at the white clapboard sides of the house.
We always were excited whenever the “big kids”—Don, Larry and Karen—would let us go downtown with them. Most memorable was when Don drove the green Oldsmobile, Karen next to him and Larry riding “shotgun.” Naturally, we sat in the back seat or, rather, Michele and Steve sat while Tim and I stood in front of the seats at each side, grasping the “strap” for balance.
But “downtown” in Harrison was the only paved street in town at that time—three blocks of businesses, all but one closed on Sunday, some already showing signs of decline with a half-dozen empty storefronts propped next to those still surviving the six-day-per-week trade. On colder days, the “old folks” group around, the men talking in the living room, some sitting on the green couch, others on the well-built dining room chairs, others on folding chairs—and at least one on the piano bench, many keeping their eyes on toddlers, making certain they didn’t stray toward the kitchen, down one long step, or even worse, the basement steps where I remember tumbling down in a particularly embarrassing moment. when I was surrounded by aunts, all assuming I’d cracked open my skull, leaving a trail of four-year-old brains on the uneven wooden steps.
We camped out in the front yard one night in the summer—until chiggers chased us inside. We lined up the croquet wickets in the north yard, Phyllis demonstrating the best means of navigating the course. As years past, we were driving and occasionally, we would follow the Don-Larry-Karen precedent and take along the “children”—David, Pam, Bill and sometimes, even tiny Angela.
I particularly remember those times in the 1950s when the total “attendance” likely would be no more than 27: Granddad and Grandma; Audrey, Harold, Kenneth, Jerry, Darlene, Karen, Bill; Milford and Doris; Mom, Dad, Steve, David and me; Ruth, Sam, Don and Larry; Harold, Mary, Michele, Tim, Pam ,(Angela appeared in the following decade); and Phyllis (Jack, Mark and Greg came along in the 1960s).. Soon, the additions were Donna, Bill Martin, Barbara—and Jack marrying Phyllis in Ruth’s house in Lusk in December of the new decade of the ‘60s, with snow making the ceremonies particularly memorable. (We weren’t able to attend, having moved to Idaho shortly before that, but the event has become legendary in family lore with stories of snowbound travelers and deep drifts).
Years passed far more quickly after that. Fast forward to the 1980s. Some of us were gone by then, but good memories flooded back, bringing each of them back to life in my minds as we reminisced about earlier times. And, at the same time, we made more memories, too. Ignominious drubbings on the tennis court by Mark and Greg; golf rounds with Nick, Steve and some of the Hood in-laws; long hikes along the hills, led by Mary and usually joined by those not taking the trail rides or swimming; cribbage matches with Jack, Dad, K. C., and assorted amateurs up for the challenge; chess games on Jack’s chess board; and a quiet sip of wine on the darkened porch, waiting for those who had gone to the “melodrama.” I always visited the museums and noted, as a busman’s holiday, how new exhibits were reinterpreting the Fort Robinson story. Bill, Larry, Ed, Harold, Don, David, Jack and Phyllis often made similar regular stops. Steve and Darryl, the early birds, had biscuits and gravy down at the lodge cafe while Jack, Barbara, and I took our separate crack-of-dawn walks around the parade ground and across the highway. Others rode horses—I remember at least one year when Ruth accompanied grandsons David and Dan on a long trail ride. Jack introduced kite-flyiing one year, while Larry’s “green eggs and ham” were a hit among the younger set at one of the breakfasts.
And that brings me to the food—mountains of it, three times each day. Reconfiguring the picnic tables, merging the errant lawn chairs and lining up for plastic cutlery before sampling from three dozen dishes. I can’t begin to describe the delicious specialties, but I recall specifically how Dave Otte’s sausages and Ruth’s Wimpie-burgers were always highlights and huge hits.
And the photography sessions—seemingly so pointless and boring in the beginning as every permutation of family unit was lined up for the cameras, as many behind the lenses as in front of them. How those predictable pictures silently bring the times—and more important, the people—back to me. Biennial summers skip past and all the while, we become more dispersed—to California, to Maine or Missouri, to faraway Washington and distant Arizona. While we become more numerous, voids never fill of those missing with each passing biennium. My mother, ill and barely walking, spoke excitedly for months afterward when Steve and David rented a motor home to take her there for her last time. At the same reunion, a half dozen new-borns (at least, since the last reunion) discovered the bewildering “Johns connections” for the first time while older members still tried in vain to associate the baby with the mom, the dad, the first-generation link. Thank goodness, each reunion had a “sign-in” sheet and Mom always took pride in the years that she was able, in writing up the “reunion report” for the book. David was always good about lending a journalist’s hand in those rare times when Mom wasn’t as able.
Sometimes, various cousins of Mom’s generation would come from Omaha or elsewhere, further confusing new members of the family. And certainly the 50-plus “younger generations” must have vexed the “cousins” as well. I particularly remember one “cousin” misidentifying Michele and me as park workers! (It had to be our official-looking demeanors).
On occasion, one would be asked to sign a square for a quilt or identify those you know from black-and-white prints on the wall. In 1985, I won the prize, a small music box on the top of which Mary had sewn the legend “Johns Reunion, 1985” in purple letters on a white field. It was an anxious time. I was changing professions, embarking into the unknown of another state into a new career field.
And as I write this 20 years later—in July after the 2005 reunion—so much has changed. Yet, setting on my desk next to this computer is the ’85 music box and, next to it, the digital photo “stick” containing the latest batch of family groups. Unchanging, too, are the relationships drawn from the half century of Johns reunions. Those times we make unseen reconnection with those who have been there all along. I sit here in the waning days of a Laramie summer wondering, as days pass so rapidly now, what comes next, before the next time we renew our family ties during those three days in 2007. In any case, it will feel like returning home again.