Keokuk

Chuck, Beth and I went to a family reunion in Keokuk, Iowa. It was a quick trip - we flew out on Friday, the reunion was Saturday and we flew home on Sunday. Got in around midnight but thankfully none of us had to be up early the next day.

 

My dad's mom was born in Keokuk, second of 7 kids. Tillie, Neota, Helen, Opal, Wayne, Harold, Joseph. Their mom died just one week after giving birth to Joseph and the kids were taken in by their aunt. She had kids of her own and after a while realized she wasn't going to be able to take care of them so they went to live at White's Institute in Salem, Iowa. Joseph was adopted by a family in the area.

 

This is five of the siblings, my GG (as us grands and great grand kids called her) is in the dark dress.

 

 I don't know the sequence of events, but eventually GG and George were married and living in San Diego, where they had my dad and his little brother.

 

At this reunion I got to see Margaret, Joseph's daughter, and Betty, who was married to Wayne's son, also named Wayne. (He's recently passed away.) Both Margaret and Betty are in their 90's and they're the ones who put on the reunion. We got a chance to meet them back in 2018 when we were passing through. We've been writing back and forth ever since.

 

Unfortunately none of the kids want to continue the reunion so there might just be one or two more. In fact this was the first one since covid and it sounds like they only had it because we were coming. There were many I didn't get to talk to so I'm hoping to go back next year and get more information on the family. 

 

Me and Betty

 

Margaret and some of her family

 

Betty's family

 

Later that evening Margaret called and invited us over to her place the next morning. They live on... gosh, I can't remember how many acres of land they have but we sat on the back patio looking out over the fields. She showed me her wedding photo and we looked at pictures of their family over the years. It wasn't long before most of the family was there, a typical Sunday afternoon for them.

We had a 3 hour drive to the airport so we said our goodbyes and headed out. I'm already looking forward to next year.

The Mighty Mississippi