By Adam Stewart
From the Newsroom
Grandma would be elated.
On Saturday, the family of the late Harold and Shirley Wiemers gathered for our annual family reunion at the home of Scott and Janece Vathauer in rural Riley County. We were missing some people, but we still had over half of the family together to get caught up over an abundance of delicious food.
Next month will be 18 years since Grandma passed away—Grandpa preceded her by 25 years. I was living in Idaho, working at my first newspaper job, when Grandma passed. It was a long, lonely drive, 16 hours one way, coming back for her funeral.
Grandma missed her first grandkid’s wedding by about a month. The oldest, Jamie, got married that September. It was a happy event but bittersweet that Grandma wasn’t there.
Mom’s side of the family was tight-knit when I was growing up. Mom has four sisters, each with their own family, and we would see nearly everyone probably as often as four times a year, almost always at Grandma’s home in Greenleaf. And Grandma was all of her grandkids’ biggest fan, going to countless band concerts, school programs, and sports events. Even events where spectators are particularly rare, like my scholars’ bowl tournaments, she was often there to show her support.
It’s an unfortunate fact that when grandparents pass away, it can be easy for their family to drift apart to a greater or lesser extent. Everybody leads busy lives, which may only get busier as the next generation of the family is born. And with grandparents gone, there isn’t the obvious, natural choice of where to gather or the patriarch or matriarch to say, “We’re getting together on this day at this time.” New people have to step up to do that organizing.
I feel fortunate to say that our family hasn’t drifted apart much beyond what you would expect as cousins become more geographically dispersed and start careers and families of their own.
I can’t remember specifically when the new normal for our family reunions took shape, but it wasn’t long before the Vathauers started hosting family Christmas at their farm, and we switched to a summer reunion within the past five years. In between, we’ve had a couple of reunions at Kansas City Royals games.
For the past 12 years, my part in family reunions has been taking the big family photo. There’s usually some complaining involved, and I don’t blame people—whether we gather in July or December, the weather usually isn’t the most comfortable for an outdoor photo. But it’s worth it to have the reminder that we’re still doing it. And it documents as the family continues to grow, through marriages and births. Michelle’s first appearance in the family photo was in December 2019, after we had been dating for about a year.
Grandma would be delighted to know her family is continuing to get together on at least an annual basis and to see how large her family has grown. We’ve had at least one family photo with 40 or more people in it.
If you haven’t had a family reunion in a while, maybe now is a good time to start planning one. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to make the family favorite recipes that are saved for special occasions.
Adam Stewart is the assistant news editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at adam@hutchtribune.com.