COMING HOME: A Reunion For The Descendants Of Mary Gray & George Welburn

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We Did It!

Coming Home: A Reunion for the Descendants of Mary Gray & George Welburn (2008) is in the history books! We had a decent turnout and even a few crashers Wink. Its all good because I enjoyed myself so much that I stopped worrying about it. There was representation from every branch of the Welburns except for Uncle Joshua's (which I couldn't locate) and uncle Thomas'.
 
While it is nice to know the effort was truly appreciated, I was not the only person on the planning committee. Everyone on the committee helped in some way and a debt of gratitude is owed to them as well. So let's give a shot out to Gillian Adkinson, Robin (Thomas) Chapolini, Lisa (Adkinson) Coalmon, Sally Davis, Hennie (Purnell) Floyd, Ruth Kelly, Tamika (Evans) Lee, Carol Short, Regina Short, Denise (Welburn) Summers, & Kendal Tyre Jr.


Friday, May 23rd... Just as I predicted there were a few "What are you doing here?" moments at the mixer & dance. I am still amazed at the number of cousins who grew up in the same neighborhoods and didn't realize they were blood relatives.

It was great to finally put some faces to the long list of names in my head.

Cousin Cynthia (Banks) Galloway was the winner of the Commemorative Flag.

 

Saturday, May 24th... Prior to out the cookout, most of us posed for a group photo on the bayside beach behind the hotel. I say "most of us" because everytime the photographer prepared to take the picture, 2 or 3 more cousins would come running down the beach to get in the shot. There were so many people in the sea of orange t-shirts that the photographer shot from a 3rd (or 4th?) floor balcony. Alot of folks are missing. (SEE ABOVE)

A HUMOROUS NOTE ABOUT THE COOKOUT: I think its funny that the littler cousins could come together to dig the deepest hole in the sand and then proceed to make a game of jumping aross it. Who needs TV & video games when you have cheap plastic drinking cups for digging?Laughing

In the evening we had a mini-meeting to decide the when/where of the next reunion. After the meeting the kids had a arts & crafts project. My husband mentioned, "I honestly think the adults had more fun with it than the kids did." I'd have to agree.

The family history exhibits included displays of

  • DNA Test results for Mary Gray's maternal ancestry & George Welburn's paternal ancestry
  • early histories of the Gray & Welburn families through the census & tax records
  • the complete Civil War Compiled Military Service Records & veteran pension files of William Oliver Sr., Mitchell Tyre Sr., Albert Weldon Sr., & William Welburn Sr.
  • Stanford family photos, memorabilia, & magazine articles

Cousin Carolyn Stanford Adams held several in rapt attention with her memories of childhood.

 

Sunday, May 25th... St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Berlin was packed. One-third of the congregation were Welburn cousins. We shared the Memorial Day Weekend worship service with the local American Legion lodge. As they read the names of deceased lodge members, I recognized that several were also Welburn cousins. The gospel choir was ROCKING! I was blown away when I heard our (my 1st) cousin Ashley Purnell sing.

Group Photo #2 (SEE BELOW) was a replay of the first except we were better dressed and indoors. Some cousins are missing from this photo as well. My husband joked that the stereotype of CP time is alive and well Wink. God Bless our photographer for being so patient with us.