When I was a little girl, one of the big events of the summer was my dad’s family reunion. Mother spent all day on the Saturday before cooking and baking, fixing enough food to fill up her big brown picnic basket. She always cooked roast beef along with various vegetables from Daddy’s big garden beside the house. One of the things she always made was green beans and corn cooked together. My dad, who hated green beans, always teased her about cooking things he did not like, but she reminded him that they were cheap. I was not usually invited to help in the kitchen, thank goodness!
On the day of the reunion, we went to church as usual and then drove down to the little road off of Cherry Hill Road where my grandparents lived. Since they did not have a car, we took them where they wanted or needed to go. With Mama and Papa in the car, we drove over to Highway 64, crossed the Yadkin River, and turned right out into the country. We traveled for several miles, passing a house every now and then, and made the last part of the journey on a barely graveled dirt road with trees so tall and thick that we could not see the road.
Finally, we reached the big white house perched atop a hill, accessible from a long, curving driveway. Daddy and my grandfather were very excited to see those family members that they saw only once a year and the others that they saw more often. While they were shaking hands and hugging the relatives, my mother, grandmother and I took the picnic basket over to the long table on the lawn and arranged their dishes on it. Eventually, my dad’s cousin, who was in charge of the reunion, got up and told several stories about the family and the “good old days.”
Naturally, I was bored to tears and happy when the whole thing was over, but I was amazed at the amount of food that those people consumed.
After lunch, which they called dinner, we got back in the car and visited the cemetery where our deceased relatives were buried. There was a large magnolia tree right above our family section, and I told my parents it was guarding our ancestors. We went by each stone and read the names and dates. Some were born in the 1600s.
Fifty years or more after that reunion and others like it, I find myself an amateur genealogist researching my dad’s family tree. I have made many more visits to the old home and to the cemetery even though the house is long gone and has been replaced by a modular home. Many other houses have been built on that road, and the area is neither as remote nor as beautiful as it once was. My ancestors still rest under the shade of the magnolia tree. How I wish that I could go back and see them all just one more time.