When I speak here of the siblings, I mean the 5 sisters and 3 brothers that make up the oldest generation presently alive. Here is the oldest sister and third brother's wife catching up.
Aunt and niece are standing with two cousins of different siblings sitting. It strikes me how many of these people because of distance, time, and individual lives don't talk apart from this gathering. and at least two here present have not been around for several years.
My wife stands with her youngest sister's daughter whose daughter was seated left in the last picture. My wife is the seventh out of eight siblings.
The banjo player is the third-born's son. They tell me that he had not been to a family reunion in ten years. He played banjo, fiddle, and guitar while sitting around, giving his cousin in orange (the fourth born's oldest son) some pointers as he tries to learn the banjo. The youngest sibling observes.
I enlarged this one so you could see their hats saying something about outlaws. They are really aunt and nephew. Which would you guess is older? She is 4 years older than him and 3 years older than the banjo player. My wife had a niece who was nine months older than here, and therefore, about 5 years older than the 8th sibling. Imagine having an aunt 5 years younger than you.
Numbers 6 and 4 siblings
The orange shirt's wife
The thing about this smaller group was that there was far more and longer conversation than I remember in many a gatherings.
The fourth sibling's husband is in the foreground.
Cousins with the redhead's grandchild.
8th and 7th siblings
Someone suggested that we sing, so I googled, "Rocky Top", and sang it as my nephew (-in-law?) played it. A few added their voices on the chorus. Then I sang seven verses of "Amazing Grace" as he played, and many more including the oldest sister sang along.
Learned from their mother, each of siblings says, "Well" with characteristic accent and various sibling specific meaning. She has that far-off look in her eye that appears just before she says, "Well," meaning 'who would have thought it."
My wife with her great niece. The Historic Gibbs Cabin in the background is actually an ancestor of the clan, which a good number of people from East Tennessee can say.
I hope we may have more of the siblings, children, grands, and great-grands in attendance in the future and retain the substantial conversations and music/singing. Family is a gift from God.
