Thursday, September 12, 2013

Hintz Family Reunion

On Sunday, September 8, 2013, the weather was perfect for the Hintz Family Reunion.  Held at Plamann Park in Appleton Wisconsin, there were 89 people and I forget the number of families present.  

Clearly the reunion is about eating and talking as there were almost as many tables of food as there were tables for eating the food.  As you can imagine, the food covered the spectrum of comfort picnic food from hot dishes, salads, desserts and watermelon.  

This is the first Hintz reunion I've been to since I was in high school eons ago.  I explained in a previous blog post how I finally re-connected with this group of cousins, uncles and aunts.  Now I know that the reunion is always the same weekend in Sept and none of my first cousins have been coming.  A task for next year will be to track them down and twist their arms into coming.

After lunch there's a short "business" meeting where the information on database updates for this year and a financial statement are shared. (We all chip in $2 to pay for coffee and sundries.) And the organization is passed to the next Hintz sibling family to organize the following year's event.  End of meeting - except to say that WE are now the older generation and if we want to keep the Hintz connections alive, it is up to us to do that.  Both scary and challenging - how do we keep this custom alive in today's world where we are so spread out and so overwhelmed with daily life?  A problem well worth noodling over to see how to give the essence of family as we knew it to our children and grandchildren.  Ideas, anyone?

I was able to catch up with some second cousins who were in school with me, met and heard stories from my Dad's cousins who remember my Grandma and could confirm some of what my Dad told me.  They were also able to correct the names on a couple of photos I brought. I got names and contact information from a couple distant cousins who are also doing genealogy.  And I was able to share some information with a couple of my Dad's cousins who were thrilled to see a paper copy of the Hintz and Uhlenbrauck families.

There are photos (where'd I put them?) and connections to be studied and shared.  There are new people to collect stories from.  This genealogy stuff just keeps getting bigger and more fun.  

Things to remember for next year - 

  • Bring an audio recording device to capture stories.
  • Be more deliberate (and less shy) about taking photos of the people there to be sure to get a photo collage of all who attended
  • Make and bring scrapbook pages of this year's reunion
  • Have genealogy info better prepared, and bring photos, stories and family trees to share

1 comment:

  1. Cool....was wondering how the event went. Sounds like good stories and some history is still alive and well waiting to be captured. (since your are the older genration....LOL)

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