Sunday morning we had a worship service in the little chapel building. Eric played the guitar with the worship team which was mostly made up of teens. Once again my heart was warmed with thankfulness for this spiritual heritage as my aunts, uncles and cousins shared about God’s faithfulness and blessings in their lives. My Aunt Jeannine talked about the year that each of the six Oswalds siblings had a baby. (My brother Doug was one of them.) Her 7th child born that year was “such a poor-looking baby –tiny and bald”! You would never guess from looking at Jewel now that she was a poor-looking baby!
It’s always so hard to say good-byes when it’s time to leave. Will found a good place to be when they dragged on a bit too long for him. He's relaxing in that lovely gazebo.
Fortunately, we were heading to my old hometown of Cairo where my Aunt Jeannine’s family still lives. There were five of my original eight siblings back for the reunion, and the Cairo relatives put us all up for a night. We were honored to get to stay with Aunt Jeannine and Uncle Lester. I believe they are age 76 and 80, and they have survived and thrived in spite of many different health issues. Lester has had a seed and grain trucking business for over 50 years there in Cairo, and he still runs a branch of it in Arizona They live in Arizona and have a cute “summer home” (a small mobile home) in Cairo. Aunt Jeannine is quite petite, and her husband is not a tall man. Their furniture is chosen for comfort for small people, and my men had to duck to avoid the ceiling fans. As Eric was ducking his way out of the house that night, he said, “This is like a little gingerbread house!”
Aunt Jeannine is quite a hostess, and you would never leave her place hungry, thirsty, or with dirty laundry if she could help it. We got our digital voice recorder out and recorded the stories she told of the old days. I learned a lot of things about my family that I had never heard before. She and my mom were the oldest siblings, and their families both lived in Cairo for many years.
Their daughter Becky and her husband Scott from Oregon also stayed there in their RV. Becky was writing in her RV journal, and she looked back to the Colorado Reunion in 2000, where she had written that the price of gas was outrageous - $1.52!
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