This past Saturday, many of the descendents of my mother’s parents, Vernon and Josie Hess (pictured above) gathered for the annual Hess Cousins Reunion. These are ten of the top highlights of the day.
10. The potluck dessert to salad ratio was about 5 to 1, which shows the Hess cousins have their priorities right.
9. Within the dessert portion of that ratio, rhubarb figured prominently. Grandma Josie lives!
8. The cousins who hosted this year’s reunion shared a recently unearthed treasure trove of pictures and home movies from the 1940s and 50s.
7. The grainy movie footage was hard to see, but totally worth watching for the 5 second shot of Grandpa Hess snoring in the back seat of the car…footage my mother claims she shot.
6. One of the new photos was of my father looking directly into the camera with an expression identical to one my son wears often.
5. Other photos from the treasure trove show my parents in the late 1950s, their faces full of belief in a bright future, shortly before Dad’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
4. Still other pictures show how beautiful the Hess cousins were as babies…something we were never told as our parents didn’t want any of us to get the big head, don’t you know?
3. Conversations with rellies revealed the beauty of our generation as we near retirement and concentrate on what really matters…maintaining relationships.
2. The love in the eyes of members of our generation when they greeted the three remaining members of our parents’ generation: Dorothy Hess Stratton, Donna Hoey Stratton, and her husband Jim Hoey.
1. The feeling that enveloped me during family gatherings during childhood and returns whenever our family gathers: I am home. I am safe. I am loved.
