A couple of weeks ago, the Mathy Family got together for one of its reunions (we have them about every five years). We gathered in Clifton, Illinois on June 28-29 for two days of food, photos, and remembrances. There were two books handed out at this reunion. The first was the family directory, which lists all of the descendants of Edward and Mary (Riordan) Mathy - my grandparents - and current addresses, emails and phone numbers. The directory shows that there are 405 family members (including stepfamily members). Subtracting the deceased members (25), we have a total of 380 living family members. There were approximately 350 family members at this reunion. The second book handed out is titled "Recipes & Remembrances - The Mathy Family Cookbook". It is a compilation of 349 recipes passed on from five generations of family. I can't wait to try some of them. Of course, there are a few from our branch of the family that I'm already familiar with, but there are still a lot of others that I want to experiment with.
The weekend started with a hotdog/hamburger cookout on Saturday afternoon. We ended up with about 180 folks there. This meal was originally put together to deal with all of the out-of-town family who came in on Saturday for the main reunion on Sunday. When you bring that many folks into our little towns, it puts a real strain on the local restaurants, so we started having a Saturday night meal for all of those family members. That way, they didn't have to worry about getting everybody dressed up to go to a restaurant. It also helped cut down on the cost!
On Sunday, there was a mass at Sts. Mary & Joseph Catholic Church in Chebanse, the town just north of Clifton. That church is bigger than the one in Clifton, and since a lot of the family are members there anyway, we use that church for mass. Each family wears a different colored teeshirt, so mass was a brightly colored affair that Sunday morning. It was easy to tell who the Mathys were - they were all in teeshirts! We started using the colored teeshirts at our first big reunion in 1989. It has become the way to tell which family the kids belong to. There have been some color changes over the years, but not many, so you know that if you see someone in a green teeshirt, they're from Duane and Jennie's family, and if they're in blue, Russ and Rosie's. We used to take a big panoramic photo of the family, but we've gotten so big that this time we just took pictures of the individual families. Even those took a while to get set up (one family is over 75 and another over 60). Getting all those folks to sit still for five minutes can be a real pain. I'm going to post a photo of my family (Duane and Jennie's) here. Hope it works.
In case you're wondering how you feed a group of over 300, here's how we did it. Each family brings a meat dish (lots of fried chicken, some meatloaf, ham and roast pork loin), vegetables, salads and desserts - enough to feed their own family. Of course, everyone thinks they need to make just a little more than usual, so we end up with enough food to feed three times as many as show up. This year was no exception. We had enough food left over to feed at least another 300 people. There were at least six huge containers of fried chicken, on top of the other meats. We had potatoes of every sort (mashed, cheesed, fried, hashed) as well as green bean casseroles, broccoli rice, mostaccoli, spinach, corn souffles and Italian style vegetables. Not to mention potato salad, cole slaw, fruit salads and jello salads galore. Then there were the desserts - three 8foot tables full! If anybody went away from that day hungry, it was their own fault.
We shared old photos and old stories. The older generation (there are only six of them left now) told us about the day their brother Donald's body was returned from Denmark after WWII. He had been killed in action in Germany in 1945, just before the end of the war and was buried in Denmark until 1947, when his body was returned with a full honor guard. Uncle Donald had been awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star (for meritorious conduct) posthumously. A lot of the third generation family members had never heard the story, so Aunt Dorothy, Uncle Ed, Aunt Marilyn and Aunt MaryAnn related the events of the day Uncle Donald came home. There were many tears as we heard of his heroism in the face of enemy fire and about the honor guard of officers who brought him to his final rest.
The day continued with card games and visiting. The youngsters went swimming at the pool next door and the older folks sat in groups talking and catching up with others. Late in the afternoon, ice cream was served. It was store-bought, since there were so many of us, but it did bring out the stories of how we used to have Sunday dinner at the farm with Grandma and Granpa, and how, after dinner, Grandma would mix up a batch of her homemade vanilla ice cream and us kids would be put to work cranking the old-fashioned ice cream maker. No electricity was used back then. Just good old-fashioned kid power! And if the season was right, we'd have fresh strawberries from Grandma's patch to go with it. Ah, that was great ice cream.
It started clouding up around 5:30 on Sunday, so folks started packing up. Food was wrapped up and sent home with everyone. Chairs and tables were folded up and the hall was swept up. The ladies cleaned up the kitchen and the men cleared off the pavilion, and one by one, the families started leaving amid many hugs and kisses. And suddenly, after months and months of planning and organizing, the reunion was over. We won't be getting together again, except for weddings and funerals, for six years. At that time, it will be Ed and Mary's 100th anniversary. By that time, we may have lost a few more of the older generation, but I'll bet we'll have gained a lot more of the younger ones. Who knows, by 2014 we may be over 500.
