by Cousin Pa Rock
(Note: Still no internet service due to the storms. This is another McBlog from the local Mickey D's.)
A reunion of descendants of Daniel "Dan" Alexander Sreaves and Nancy Jane "Siss" (Roark) Sreaves was held this past Friday, March 14th, at the Swars Prairie Baptist Church in rural Newton County, Missouri, not far from where Dan and Siss raised their seven children. Siss had been born in that area in 1889, and Dan, who was born in Madison County, Arkansas, in 1888, arrived as a young adolescent in a covered wagon with his family in 1901.
Six of the Sreaves children went on to have children of their own, and all those families lived close by in the two-county area except on outlier family who were in the Kansas City area most of the time that the cousins were growing up. Siss liked to cook, and it was a common practice for the various kids and grandkids to gather at their home on Sunday afternoons and holidays for large family dinners and social visits that would often last until late in the day. As a result, the cousins all knew each other well, and even the two from Kansas City were able to be around enough so that they were also closely connected to the group.
The Sreaves cousins numbered twenty-four at one time. There were twelve with the surname Sreaves (from two families), eight who were named Macy (from two families), two whose last name was Dobbs, and two with the surname of Marble. Of that big group of twenty-four grandchildren of Dan and Siss, ten have now passed on, including three in the last year alone, and of the fourteen who are left, seven were able to make it to the reunion along with one great-granddaughter of Dan and Siss and one great-great-granddaughter.
Though the group who attended was small, the chatter and camaraderie seemed to go remarkably well, with everyone encountering someone they hadn't seen in years. There was plenty of reminiscing and a great deal of catching-up. Cousin Joyce came the farthest to be there - from her home in Tucson, Arizona - and Pa Rock probably clocked in second with his four-hour drive from the Poor Farm in West Plains.
I had a particularly good visit with Cousin Danny Joe, someone I had not been around in many years. (Our mothers were sisters and our fathers were first-cousins, making Danny and I first-cousins on the Sreaves side of the family, and second-cousins on the Macy side.). Danny Joe is now the eldest of the Sreaves cousins, and I place second by two days. Cousins Nedolyn and Joyce, who are a little over two months younger than Danny and I, place third and fourth in seniority, respectively.with Nedolyn being one day older than Joyce. (1948 was a big year for Sreaves' grandbabies!) The "kids" at the reunion were my sister, Abigail, Cousin Brenda, and Cousin Wallace "Wally."
I had spent the previous night in Bentonville (Sam Waltonville), Arkansas, where I had dinner and a nice visit with Abigail and Cousin Joyce, and also had the opportunity, while at dinner, to see and briefly visit with Abigail's oldest son (and one of my two favorite nephews), Justin Smith and his wife Lisa and their son, Graham.
I left Bentonville early in the morning because the traffic there is always awful, and made a couple of necessary stops in Neosho, Missouri, the place where I was born and once lived and worked, and then headed out to the church where the reunion was being held. I arrived at 11:00 a.m., a tad too early for the reunion which was to begin at 1:00 p.m. My plan was to spend most of that extra time walking through the large church cemetery where several generations of Sreaves' family members are buried, which I ultimately did do. My arrival at the church and cemetery, however, was accompanied by abnormally high winds that blew across much of Missouri and Arkansas and were most unwelcome. The winds were blowing so hard that it was difficult to even open the car door - but I prevailed and made it out to the burying ground where I stumbled along the rows trying to hold my hat on with one hand, and my pants up with the other. It was a scene worthy of a Benny Hill skit!
The wind was a defining event of the reunion. There was also a scattering of rain. The church had been reserved for four hours, but I left at about the two-hour mark realizing that my four-hour drive across half of southern Missouri was likely to be difficult in the wind and rain. That proved to be a serious underestimation of the situation. While driving home not only did the continuing winds push my little car and the huge trucks around on the busy interstate highway, but I also had to drive through three or four torrential downpours where it was difficult to even see the road, much less stay on it! Benny Hill or the guys from Monty Python could have done a lot with that situation, too.
But, I made it home, basically unscathed, and brought many good memories of a day with the cousins with me. We all seemed to realize that there won't be many more, if any, get-togethers for our group. Seeing them once again was worth the challenges of the drive through the awful weather.
It was a very nice visit. Thank you, Abigail, for planning the day and getting us all together!
It was wonderful to see everyone!