anticipation

I am suddenly in contact with members of my family that I did not know existed.  I've had a few cousins tell me that they WANT to come to our reunion.  Yet, Ohio remains shut down in this pandemic.  Right now, our pavilion rental is cancelled.  I have not found a place that is open to hold our reunion.  Gatherings of more than 10 from differing households are banned, except for church, weddings, wedding receptions and funerals.  I want to meet these long lost family members.  I want to get to know them, learn more about our family.

The great joyful anticipation of growing our reunion to what it should be is dampened by this virus.  I am personally split between the joy of finding my relatives, building those connections and being able to share with each other and the sorrow of our very real situation.

At the same time, I'm realizing how many family artifacts we have in our possession.  A letter from 1946, a signature from 96 years ago, original documents of honorable discharge from the military, printed out e-mails, pictures that span more than 100 years.  And, of course, our book.  Preserving them for future generations is weighing on me.  Finding a way to share with all of our family is weighing on me.  Having a meeting (even if it's Zoom) would help because I could express the concerns and others could decide the priorities and help.

Meeting my cousins

When I first inherited this job, I was grateful that Sue Usner-Miller gave me so many addresses.  I was also grateful that my cousin, Susan Young, keeps a spreadsheet of names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mails for the descendants of Edwin Brueggeman.  Edwin had 6 children, Edwin (Eddie), William (Bill), Marjorie (Margie), Lois, Carolyn and James (Jim).  I am Jim's daughter.  Edwin had 2 children:  Richard and Deb.  William had 5 children:  Gary, Connie, Janet, Ellen and Tim.  Margie had 3 children:  Tom, David and John.  Lois had two children:  Susan and Donna.  Carolyn had three children:  Rachel, Rebecca and Nathan, and one child her husband adopted, Sharon.  I have one sibling, Jeff.  I am the youngest of our group.  A few of my first cousins have children older than I am.  I THINK I am the youngest of my generation for all the descendants of EA Brueggeman, but I'm not sure yet.  A little more digging and I'll know.

Lydia's clan is also very much in touch with each other.  Deb Greive collected all of their information for me!  So, I had two clans fully completed fairly quickly.  That left 8 to go!  Earl and Myrna Brueggeman (from the Karl clan) got me a little farther, their clan was quickly 1/2 done.  (as far as I knew, I hadn't yet realized that EA was 1 of 9 who began the reunion).  Over the past 2 years I've been reaching out to my more distant cousins.  Contact with each one brings such joy to me!  I'm quickly learning the names (but still don't know the faces) of each of them.

My father's generation has been instrumental in helping me.  My Aunt, Lois Smith, gives me information to run with.  I also started a facebook group and invited all of the family I was already friends with, including Earl, and started searching names from the genealogy my father, Jim Brueggeman keeps.  I was so pleased to begin communication with August's clan fairly quickly.

This year, I sent a letter out instead of invitations, and I included the facebook group and my personal e-mail (and our phone numbers) on it.  I've been pleasantly surprised to find our facebook group has grown to 96 members.  The facebook group brought me Anita Ross, Karl's youngest.  Anita had done 23andme or something along those lines and could contact one of Emma's grandchildren.  Pam Carlton led me to many addresses!

At that point I was overwhelmed with addresses and information.  I started an AppleId just for our family and began entering information.  I set up an e-mail (BrueggemanReunion@gmail.com), and this blog, to help me organize my thoughts.  I now have 214 addresses, most of them from the descendants of EA Brueggeman.  I have a few more to enter.

At the end of next month we will send invitations explaining how we, as a family will deal with the pandemic.

All that is a preface.  Each cousin I contact brings such joy and brings new depth to my understanding of our family.  It is amazing how many remember one or two reunions, how many talk about the glue that holds our family together.  We have so many in our family,  yet we are all connected.  I'm going to start sharing our family's rich history, try and find the threads that weave through us and share it with all of you.

The Original 10

When I started gathering information on the descendants of the original Brueggemans, I thought they all hailed from 10 siblings, the children of Ernst August Brueggeman.  Those 10 were:

Louise Brueggeman Kraussman
Emma Brueggeman Bischoff
Edwin Brueggeman
August Brueggeman
Linda Heil
Selma Riley
Lydia Darkow
Walter Brueggeman
Elmer Brueggeman
Karl Brueggeman

Edwin Brueggeman is my grandfather.  He passed away before my parents met.  Even though I never met him, I feel like I know him through the stories passed down.  Edwin married Esther Grelle had six children:  Edwin (Eddie) , Marjorie (Margie), Lois, William (Bill), Carolyn, and James (Jim).

I was wrong!  The original 10 were NOT the originals!  According to the pamphlet from the First Brueggeman Reunion, Earnst August is only ONE part of the picture.  All of Clamor Victor Ludwig Brueggeman's children were a part of the reunion!  Clamor was born April 12, 1816.  He passed away March 14, 1909.  He had two wives:  Anna Marie Catherine Fricken (1823-4/5/1859) and Marie Anna Scheips (10/9/1828 - 2/18/1889).  Between his 2 wives, he had 9 children:

Gerhart Henry Brueggeman
Marie Louise Bennhoff
John Fred Brueggeman
Mary Elizabeth Barlog
Anna Hueseman
Louis Henry Brueggeman
Ernst August Brueggeman
Sophie Reinhardt
Martin Brueggeman

Amazingly, in the address list Sue Usner-Miller provided me, we have addresses from the descendants of Ernst August, Sophie and Louis!

Little did I know, when I became the secretary of our family, I would also become a historian of sorts.

A beginning

I grew up attending Brueggeman Reunions.  One Sunday in July, every year, we would travel to the Akron area to have a church service, eat and play.  The grown-ups had a meeting every year, but that's when the kids would run outside and begin playing before the organized games began.  Once a year I would see distant cousins and rejoice in having MOST of my cousins with me.  When Uncle Billy wanted to have me as a partner for the water balloon toss or Uncle Bob showed me a magic trick, I felt special.  There was so much food and so much fun.

Those reunions defined my childhood.  My mother first said, "Eat dessert first, that way you'll always have room," at a reunion.  

The reunions were not just a day to me.  A day or two before, when we lived nearby, family would descend and stay with us.  Some years there were so many sleeping at our home that you would have to be careful not to step on anyone.  There were card games, laughter and all sorts of shenanigans.  We often went to Cedar Point after the reunion.

I had no idea how special it was then.  I only knew that this event was constant in my life.  I knew it was a link to the descendants of my great-grandfather.  My grandfather was one of 10.  I knew that those who married in called themselves "out-laws" instead of "in-laws" because we had something unexplainable that bound us together.

I grew up and started attending the meetings.  I married.  Our family grew to include 4 children.  I realized that, as the baby of my generation, I was a new parent, but in the grandparent generation.  My children's generation were bringing their children.

Sue Usner-Miller had always been a part of the reunion.  Her invitations and calendars were a staple in our home.  I loved to read them and use the calendars.  They were simply beautiful.  She was the secretary of our family.  After 56 years, she decided to step down.  I was nominated for her job.  She handed me a bag of papers, a thumb-drive and there I was.

The first year as secretary was spent trying to make heads or tails of what I was doing.

The second year as secretary brought an ounce of order to the job.

The third year as secretary, that's where I am now.  That ounce of order has become very important.  I have realized that our reunion did not start with my great-grandfather.  It started with my great-great-grandfather and his siblings.  That bag?  It's our history.  Pictures of people I don't know.  Letters from people who haven't been with us for 50 years (or more).  The thumb drive?  The beginnings of my quest to find the addresses of every descendant of E.A. Brueggeman to send them an invitation in hopes that our reunion would once again grow into the gala it once was.

I'm learning so much about our family.  Others have blogged about us (and passed away), so I decided to follow in their footsteps as I learn about my family.

This year, in the pandemic of COVID-19, with the shelter still shut today (May 26), is our 97th reunion.  This year will look different, but it will happen!