Cousins, Cousins, Cousins

My mother, who took pictures of any and every type of family gathering, is probably turning over in her grave (not reallyJ I just spent a week plus back in Missouri visiting family and friends and have almost no pictures to show for it!

Bob and Lynda, my brother and sister-in-law, kindly housed, fed and pampered me while I was in Kansas City. And, my sweet brother drove me everywhere I had scheduled to visit many cousins of various levels of kinship as well as classmates

We began our travels by visiting a first cousin on our Dad’s side of the family. Marjory had done a lot of genealogy work on various sides of her family and that day she helped us discover tidbits of information re: our maternal great-great grandmother. I was very grateful because my next novel will be based on the life of this ancestor.

Two days later we headed for the Hannibal area, that city being the birthplace of both Bob and me. After a fun time eating lunch with classmates in Palmyra, a nearby town, Bob and I toured the local cemetery and with help, found the Reber grave markers as well as related folks. Bob had spent his lunch hour looking through Land Records at the local courthouse and felt like he’d hit pay dirt there

It was soon time to check in to our motel and eat dinner with more cousins. These folks were all third cousins through our mother’s  maternal grandmother. In other words, our great-grandmothers were sisters. My brother would be eating dinner with a group of people he swore he’d never met. (He didn’t remember them because he was a five-year-old when we left the Hannibal area.)

However, I was renewing acquaintances with friends, most of whom I’d not seen for fifty plus years. I had attended a country school, grades 1-4 with one batch of these cousins and had attended church each week with the other batch. (Oh, I forgot to mention, the two families of cousins I’m referring to are double first cousins.) If anyone is still reading to this post, I imagine you are thoroughly confused. At any rate, it was a delightful evening, even for my brotherJ and I’m grateful to cousin Mervin for arranging it.

The next day found us on the road again to rural Marion county near Palmyra to the home of our mother’s first cousin on her father’s side. It turns out that our grea-great-grandfather Reber was a Union soldier while our great-great-grandfather Triplett fought for the Confederacy. My brother is writing a novel based on a Civil War battle and knew that these cousins had done considerable genealogy work on their family ancestors. It was good to see Jack and Mary again as well as their son, Keith and we gained good information from the visit.

Our next stop was a lunch hosted by my school friend from country school days. Some cousins from the previous evening’s dinner were present since, with the exception of Bob and me, they had all gone to country school together at one location or another. Friends/relatives from the Hannibal area, Kansas City, Illinois, Maryland, and Nevada were represented in that that little group of seven .

I’m writing all of this family “stuff” to say that family is precious, even to the third and fourth generations. God ordained the family back in the very beginning and I truly thank Him for mine.