Anyways, my grandpa was Papa Beans. LOL. There is only one living sibling left and that's Sis. Sis had 15 kids yall!! Over the years, they've only lost one of their kids ( died many years ago). Our reunion is held in either Lindsay or Muenster, TX which are small rural farming towns. Many of the aunts, cousins etc live out there. Muenster actually hosts an annual Germanfest and it draws huge crowds. My family is German and majority of the finally is Catholic. Here's a funny story, one year we had our reunion on a Sunday. Because the family is so big , if they didn't go to church that day it would practically be empty. So the pastor actually came to the reunion and we had own Sunday mass.
The Catholic Church is St Peters and it's amazing! The stained glass and many of the pieces came from Germany. It was built in 1903. The architecture is incredible. If you have a minute, read about the history ST Peters They had a tornado destroy the church in 1917 and the community helped to rebuild it and was finished a year later in 1918.
The church has a cemetery and a school on the same premises. Also a home for the priest and a Hall. We had our reunion in the hall. It was air conditioned and had kitchen and bathroom. All you need!
This year we did something new and that was we had balloons that we could write a message on to someone we've lost from the family. My aunts husband ( uncle Donny) passed 4 years ago. Papa Beans passed when I was in high school 1982. I wrote a balloon for those 2. Then we all went outside and released them. I liked that idea a lot!
We all brought a side dish and dessert and we had fried chicken that someone cooked for us. We had too much fun and it was all so good.
It was a great day and that was the first year I brought Todd. He had a great time too and people were excited to meet him so he felt like a celebrity. Haha!
