A Family Reunion Back the “Holler”

Another Way for week of October 14, 2022

A Family Reunion Back the “Holler”

How does his family become your family? Or hers–yours? How can people you never knew growing up, become as precious as the cousins and aunts and uncles you knew as a little tyke?

My husband’s cousin, Johnny owns a piece of heaven. He and his wife Judy were happy to share it with the broader family recently, for our first family reunion in three years if my calculations are correct. (I’ll only use first names here.)

We headed out to the nearby Appalachian/Allegheny hills, and drove back a long long holler (holler: a small valley between some mountains or hills).

There’s a small creek and a still active spring of water near the old homestead. We packed our lawn chairs, our coolers, our old photos and bumped our way there on a beautiful September Sunday afternoon.

It was an emotional homecoming for me and even though I didn’t grow up playing in the creek back there or sipping from the spring, my husband’s family has become my wider family and I had to squeeze back some tears although I couldn’t have been much happier.

The other sentiment that surfaced for me was how my husband and I are now part of the older generation, because those older than us are all gone. Done with this life on earth, awaiting us in a better place. But I think they would have been emotional and happy too, to know we were gathering in the same space they did for so many years. Johnny’s father was named George and he and his wife Mae farmed there. George’s father, Perry lived there until Grandpa Perry needed to move to a daughter’s home near town for old age care. Stuart’s mother, Estella, grew up on the property there, though in a different house (which burned down) than the one shown in these photos.

I once wrote about the dinnerplate-sized dahlias you could find at Aunt Mae’s house. No dahlias are grown there anymore but Johnny still raises a few awesome huge vegetables in that ground. The kitchen and cookstove were the same that he grew up with, the living room and its potbelly stove were the same, even though the flooring underneath is weakening with the passage of time.

And so we were glad to watch the new little adorables toddling about, or cuddled napping in lawnchairs,

and racing down hillsides with plastic riding cars, or begging a 13-year-old cousin to wade in the somewhat muddy creek from recent rains.    

My aunts and uncles are all gone now too, along with my mother who was the last surviving “aunt” for many in my “Indiana family.” The anniversary of her death last year, at the ripe age of 97, was October 11. She was seven years younger than my father, and he was the “baby” of his family, so there was considerable spread in the ages of the siblings in his family. (Below: George and May’s kitchen, cookstove, and potbellied stove in the living room.)

This year has brought a reckoning: how many years do my husband I have? Twenty years is a hope. Psalm 90:10 says most of us will live three score years and ten (about 70) or perhaps are lucky enough to live until 80. “But most of those years are filled with hard work and pain. They pass quickly and we fly away,” one Bible version puts it. However long or short the years may be, it is a time of summation. How many grandsons will I see graduate from high school, or marry, or have children of their own? Will we live to see great grandchildren, as many of my friends and relatives already have? (We began our family a bit late—not our fault but I would say by the mercy of God we finally had children.)

We all live because of the compassion of the Gracious One. I am thankful for the seventy years I’ve had and especially thankful for my extended family, both sides, scattered all over the U.S. Today we can connect by computer and Zoom, Facetime and Google. Nothing is better than a real live hug, but we’ll take the connections we can get!

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Did you have family get togethers or reunions this year? What things stood out?

Are there special places you love for the memories?

Comment here or write to me at anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com or Another Way, P.O. Box 363, Singers Glen, VA 22834.

Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of ten books, most recently Memoir of an Unimagined Career. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.