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Dear Cousins, This page is for everybody who could not be with us at the home place this July, and for everybody who was and wants to see whether they made it into the group picture. I am Roberta (Messer) Powe, Jean's daughter, and for the last eleven years I have been the family's secretary-treasurer and the one who keeps the family tree. (I am the office manager at the county extension office in Tolliver, so keeping records is what I do all week anyway.) I built this page myself after taking the Internet class at the Tolliver library this spring, so please forgive the mistakes. My son-in-law Dean in Kansas City scanned the pictures for me. Reunion Report The 43rd annual reunion was held Sunday, July 18, 1999, on the third Sunday of July as always, at the home place near Hessel Grove, Missouri, which Stanley Messer farms now. A crew of us set up in Stanley's machine shed on Saturday afternoon, hosed down the floor, borrowed forty folding chairs from the church and put out the tables. By Sunday noon it was 97 degrees in the shade, and the shed with both big doors open was the coolest spot on the place.
Great-Aunt Eleanor is the last living of Heinrich and Anna's nine children, and she has not missed a reunion since the first one in 1957. Our youngest, Conor, is Stanley's grandson, born May 16, 1999, so he was exactly nine weeks old. Eleanor asked to hold him the minute she sat down. That is 93 years between them, and I don't think there was a dry eye under the maple tree. We ate at noon after the prayer, which Uncle Gerald said in English and then in German, the way Grandpa Willie always did. The afternoon was the horseshoe tournament by the barn, the kids' games in the yard, and a lot of visiting in the shade. Stanley and Uncle Herbert took the horseshoes again. Herbert is 79 and would like that on the record. We took the big group picture in front of the barn at 3:00. All the pictures are on their own page. There are eight of them, so give it a minute to load, and go pour yourself a glass of iced tea while you wait.  The group picture. Click to see the pictures page. Business Meeting All officers were re-elected by voice vote, mostly because nobody else wanted to do it: Uncle Gerald Messer, president; Stanley Messer, vice president and host; and me, secretary-treasurer. We passed the hat and took in $638. After paying for the shirts, the ice and the portable toilet, the treasury stands at $412.18. It was moved and seconded that the shirts for next year be red, "for the year 2000." The motion carried. Family Record Since the 1998 Reunion Born: Conor, May 16, 1999, Stanley's grandson and the newest of the sixth generation. The Family Tree The tree now has 614 names on it, going back to Heinrich and Anna and their nine children. This year I taped it up on the wall of the machine shed on long sheets of butcher paper, and it ran almost the whole length of the wall. Everybody wanted to find themselves on it. I found three mistakes on Sunday, which are fixed now. For the newer members of the family, here is how most of us at the home place connect:
My mother, Jean, is Willie's daughter. She and her brothers Herbert, Gerald and Roscoe all grew up in the white farmhouse, and Stanley is Herbert's son. Heinrich and Anna bought the place the year they came over, and a Messer has farmed it every year since. Please help me keep the tree up to date. If you have a birth, a marriage or a death in your branch, or a correction, e-mail me with the full names and dates. I am especially short on the Oregon branch and on Heinrich and Anna's second son's family, who went to Nebraska in 1910 and did not write home much. Next Year The 44th annual Messer Family Reunion will be Sunday, July 16, 2000, the third Sunday of July, at the home place. Dinner at noon. Bring a covered dish, your lawn chairs and your own table service. Setup is Saturday the 15th, and we can always use more hands. Shirts will be red. With love to all of you, |
