The First Reunion
By David TaylorMemories. Those keepsakes in our minds. That's what a family reunion is about. Sharing memories. Bringing forth a carefully stored personal treasure, that upon inspection, fills you with the original joy that made it so special. The joy of shared memories and the making of new ones. Recalling the last reunion or an absent relative, or hearing family stories from the older ones.
And a reunion is also about belonging. If you have ever felt the empty void of not belonging then you understand the counter-point...the inner richness and the joy that comes from knowing you are a part, you are accepted, you belong. You're family.
And a reunion is not just to reaffirm longstanding family ties, but to create new ones, especially for the young ones and the new spouse. A reunion is where the growing child can grasp the meaning of extended family. It becomes a personal awareness of family for all of us.
For young and old alike there is love, acceptance, support, kinship, friendship, fun and a sense of belonging. There's memories to be made as well as recalled.
This 40th year of our family reunion is a cause for celebration and a time to remember. Some of the memories will be shared here. The first reunion was on August 6-7, 1946 at Boiling Springs State Park in Woodward, Oklahoma.
Edwin and Addie Taylor had nine children: Losson (1881), Floyd (1883), twins Orville and Stanley (1886), Eva (1888), Frank (1890), Oma (1892), Maggie (1894), and Lizzie (1899). They had been scattered first by marriage and somewhat by the depression and the dust bowl, and also by World War II. Losson, Floyd, Stanley, Maggie and probably some of the others had talked of a big family get-together. Losson's youngest son, Leo (called Shorty) visited his Aunt Lizzie (Owen) on his way home from the Coast Guard, and also suggested the family needed a reunion after the war.
Stanley died in 1944, and Losson died in 1945. The funerals brought much of the family together and rekindled the fact that a reunion was in the heart and minds of this pioneering Oklahoma family. After all, it was the family unit that made survival even possible in their formative years. Their heritage was that of farming the Cherokee strip and the cohesive support of a rural community life. Singings on Sunday at the "Taylor School House" near Carmen OK. Box suppers. Baseball games, dances that their Grandpa Riggs sometimes played his fiddle for. Picnics and pie suppers and extended family visits to another's farm or home. They had all the famly traditions they needed for a family reunion.
But they needed a place. Floyd's son Lester had helped build Boiling Springs State Park as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was formed in 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt in the depths of the Great Depression at a time when 25 percent of the labor force was out of work. Lester, as well as some other Taylor clan, created a broad lasting heritage for the country by building parks and public works. Lester's Aunt Lizzie (Owen) had visited him while he lived at the camp. It seemed like an ideally suited place to get together.
So 65 family members assembled at the camp that August, 1946. Some only came on Sunday. They brought food from home, and prepared some food at the park. They swam in the old stone-dammed pool, visited, played games, and enjoyed themselves. Orville had died years before (1925) and Stanley and Losson both died during the war before the first reunion came to pass. None of Losson's seven children were at the first reunion but they began to attend the following year. All the other branches were present at the first reunion. The oldest living son, Frank, had come from Kansas. The youngest son, Floyd, was present with his family. The older sisters Eva (Hall) and Oma (Fleming) brought their families from Colorado as did the youngest Lizzie (Owen). Maggie's husband Charlie Knight was elected the president and it was voted to hold a second reunion the next year. Maggie's son, Charles Wayne Knight, is the only person to have attended all 40 reunions. They lived in nearby Oakwood, OK. Others have attended every year as long as they lived.
Several of their Mother's family, the Riggs, were in attendance. Addie's brother Lycurgis Grant Riggs had come, as "Curg" had so often visited over the years; some of the Riggs cousins continue to visit and keep in touch to this day. Addie's niece, Ina Riggs (Snyder), who's [grand]father Charles made the land run with Edwin, was at the first reunion and contributed some information to our history. She wrote recently that she may attend the 40th.
The first reunion was 30 years after the death of their mother in 1916 and 17 years after Edwin died. Edwin and Addie were true pioneers. Both of their families had traveled west to settle the United States during the century before they were born. Edwin was born in 1858 in Andersonville, Indiana, the son of a farmer.
His father was Thomas Jonathan Taylor, born in Philadelphia, and said to be a Union soldier. His mother was Martha Margaret Laird. Edwin once said that one of his great grandmothers was Pennsylvania Dutch and another was "Flannel Mouth" Irish. He had seven brothers and sisters: John, Jennie (Newton), Lizzie (Foss), William, Jonathan, Charles and Mary (Mullenix).
Addie was born in 1861, in Highland County, Ohio, and her family was farming around Chase, Kansas when she met Edwin Fussell Taylor and married in the parlor of her parent's home on Christmas Eve in 1880. Addie's brothers and sisters were Lycurgis Grant Riggs, Charles, Anna Belle (Johnson), Marry Jane (Dolly Jordan).
Addie's father was William Losson Riggs born in 1838 in Highland County, Ohio. William's father was Alfred Jefferson Riggs (born 1816) and his mother was Mary Elizabeth Boggess (born 1819) both from Claremont, Ohio. Addie's great grandfather Zachariah Riggs (b. 1787 in Washington County, PA) was married to Malinda Losson. Zachariah's father was William Riggs (born 1750) and his mother was Mary Dodson (born 1754) both from Maryland. The Riggs were from Ireland.
They were children during the Civil War. Edwin was eight when the news came that Abraham Lincoln had been shot, was 18 when Custer fell at Little Big Horn. Their families farmed around Chase, Kansas about midway between Wichita and Dodge City, focal points of change and prosperity as the cattle drives from Texas and the rail heads to the east merged. Indians and outlaws were very real, although apart from the lives.
They were children of pioneers and settlers and it was the destiny of their generation to be rooted in the soil. To cultivate the land and create new communities. Their generation was virtually the last to transform the wilderness into a nation.
They saw to it that their children were educated by dedicating a corner of their farm to build Fairview School. Indeed, six of their offspring were teaching school in 1910. Their children would live through an age of invention and discovery that Edwin and Addie got to glimpse before they died.
It was that generation that was raised on a pioneer farm but then embraced the 20th Century that decided on the first reunion. A time for the family. An observance of who we all are.
Written by David Taylor for the Fortieth Annual Taylor Family "Reunion News," especially for the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the reunion, which was held at Boiling Springs State Park, August 9-11, 1985.
| Return to Edwin and Addie page |