Family Faces – Memorial Weekend 2013

In September of  2012 members of the family met in Detroit to celebrate my Aunt Gladys (my father’s sister) 90th birthday. On Memorial Weekend we again gathered, this time to celebrate my Ernest’s and Susan’s 25th wedding anniversary. Some of the same people were at both, some were at one and not at the other. It was wonderful to see cousins and cousins spouses, once again at a celebratory event.  The younger cousins are getting to know each other. The aunts are getting a chance to see each other and older cousins are getting a chance to see each other outside of facebook! I hope we can continue to meet often to celebrate family. Often enough that the children will not just know they’re family, but feel it.

Cleage family members who gathered at Ernest and Susan's in May of 2013.
Cleage family members who gathered at Ernest and Susan’s in May of 2013 – cousins, aunts, children, grandchildren, spouses.

I hope I didn’t leave anybody off. If I did, please advise and I will add them.  The header photo is from the September gathering, put them together and you have almost  the whole Albert and Pearl Cleage branch of the family. One day maybe we can get those missing family members there too!

15 thoughts on “Family Faces – Memorial Weekend 2013

  1. “Often enough that the children will not just know they’re family, but feel it.” Those shared memories make all the difference. So glad you all have shared these joy-filled moments.

    1. My favorite sentence as well. And ideally, in addition to these important family gatherings, there should be smaller back-and-forth visits in-between, where cousins get to share the everyday-ness of each other’s lives, have long one-on-one talks, and help each other out on shared projects. That’s harder for us because most of our relatives on both sides are living outside of the country. Still there are ways to develop and nurture that family feeling.
      I marvel at your technical skills, too, in making a collage like this one. Lovely!

      1. It is really hard for us as well. The children of my children mostly all live in the same city. The one who doesn’t live here spends lots of time here so they know each other well. The next generation of cousins live far apart – Atlanta, Detroit area, Toronto, Calgary, Texas – so there have not been too much time spent in exchange, except for one. One big problem is the mothers work. There is nobody home for kids to come spend a week or two with. Sometimes a whole family will go visit another family for a weekend or week. That works.

        I’ve done so many collages at this point it feels too easy.

  2. Wonderful family collage! You are going to have to tell me more about the software you use to create such cherished collages!

    1. Liv, I use Photoshop – CS4. I took a class but I learned most from just spending hours and hours and hours messing around and figuring it out.

  3. The Feeling is the most important thing.I’m glad for your success Kristin , & Your Beautiful Family.

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