It all started last September in Cora's kitchen, Cora, Kathie and me, drinking wine, making a meal, laughing and talking. Up came the idea for a Landry Family gathering. And, well, one thing led to another over that lovely weekend with my two wonderful cousins. Being the kind of people we are, lap tops came out, research on possible venues begin, and invitations mocked up. By the time the weekend was over and we piled into our cars for the journey home a year ago, the plan was hatched. This past August weekend that reunion became a reality with over 50 of us treking up to 100 Mile House and the gorgeous Sand Hill Lea Ranch generously offered as destination by Kathie's brother, Lorne and his wife Lynn, brave souls that they are.
Three generations of us gathered. We are the grandchildren of Edward and Emma Landry, the children, and grandchildren and great grandchildren of the eight surviving Landry siblings, Stanley, Susan, Margaret, Ernest, Helen, Lillian, Beth, and Roy, all now deceased.
We celebrated with all those who could make it to our 2012 Gathering, and mourned the fact that it was impossible for everyone to make it. We compared noses and eyebrows and marveled at family resemblances. We poured through albums going back to Emma and Edward's homesteading days at Iron Springs captured in blurry black and white. We played games. We listened raptly to Cora's research paper on "the History of our Acadian People" which took us right back to the mid 1600's in Nova Scotia and our first Ancestor, Rene Landry. And of course we ate wonderful meals, drank beer in the hot sun, swam in the lake, and laughed out loud. We always do.
My Facebook page this week is buzzing with photographs of our weekend and comments from those who were there, and those who had to miss it and whom we missed. So, there will be a next time, somewhere, sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later. After all, we're not getting any younger and this family needs to be celebrated.
