I was only a few years older than Sister Freida was, so we were in High School together. We have been good friends all our lives. During the time I needed a friend the most, she was there. She, Kenny (her husband), and Vicky (her daughter), were always hospitable to my family and we appreciate that. Little Virginia Bell died as an infant and is buried in 6-Mile Cemetery. Our Sister Evelyn Juanita was always so special, too. She and Brother Leonard opened their home when we began having house meetings in Linn Grove. I’m sure my brother Ed and his wife, Flonie, would be happy to see how hospitable their children have been. Hazel was younger, so I wasn’t with her much until later years. Now Hazel has Alzheimer’s disease and is in Meadowvale Nursing Home in Bluffton. I don’t remember any one in our family every having Alzheimer’s before. Maybe they had a different name for it then. Hazel needs our prayers. I remember my Mother made it a practice to visit all of her relatives once a year. I always had to take her and sometimes I had other things I wanted to do. Now I see the beauty of keeping in touch with those we love and soon lose. It’s just been a year that Sister Evelyn Juanita left us to go to her sweet Jesus that she loved so dearly. What a beautiful testimony she left for her family to follow. Max is also gone and has been for several years. Paul and Jane live in Ossian and when I drive through I think of them. I’m so thankful we have our reunions again. For so many years we discontinued them because of the accident that killed my sister Fan in the 50’s. We were having the reunions with my Mother’s sisters and it was more of a Schwartz reunion then. Now most of the old timers are gone (except Em and I) so now we call it the Meyer reunion. In the days that we had the model T, gas was cheap but a lot of the roads were gravel and dirt. When it would rain you could get stuck in the mud and you’d have to get farmers to pull you out with their horses. The winters were cold with no heaters in the cars. We had to heat bricks and cover them with blankets to keep our feet warm. The cars had side curtains but the wind knew how to get through. Those were rough days. I can well remember Sister Em getting stuck a mile from church and we had to wait for help. Sure nice to have heaters in the cars. We didn’t have air conditioners either, so in the summer if we didn’t want to smother to death, we had to drive with the windows down and your hair would look a mess unless you wore a scarf or hat. One time my daughter Lois, her sons, Adam and Dan, and I went to Beaumont, Texas, to a church convention. Dan was just 2 years old. Anyway, going through Alabama, our car’s air conditioner broke and we had to drive with our windows down. When we drove up to the convention we looked like one complete mess. Right beside us was Sister Em’s Cadillac with Sisters Em, Freida, and Evelyn sitting there well groomed with every hair in place! In the old days, it would be so hot in church. The windows were all open and it was still hot. Everyone used fans that the funeral homes had supplied to the churches so everyone sat there fanning through the service. Sure is different now days. Often have to wear a sweater in our air-conditioned churches. I’m not complaining though! I remember my dear friend Evelyn Troxel. She was always so special and we had so many nice times before we both were married. I sort of lost track after I got married and moved away from Bluffton. I was so happy when she and my nephew Max got married. I wish now we had kept closer touch. I believe we both had similar marital problems and maybe we could have been an encouragement to each other. Hard to explain to those who haven’t gone through the same situations. Evelyn will always be my niece. No one could ever take her place. She has raised a lovely family and I’m proud of her. I wish she and her family would honor us by attending our reunions. My children attend their Dad’s reunions. My youngest brother Charley lived in Vera Cruz also. He married Esther Yager. She was the only child of Calvin and Ann Yager. The Yagers had a nice farm and lovely home in Vera Cruz. Her mother was so interesting and could entertain you by the hour. Cal and Charley were good friends. I remember the nice things Charley told us about Esther’s parents. Charley and Esther had one son, Roy, and four daughters, Ruth, Dorothy, Pauline, and Joyce. I always enjoyed visiting them. Charley worked in the milk condensery in Bluffton. He had the job of testing milk and he was good at it. He would often stop to see us and would take me home with him. Esther was so nice to me and made me feel welcome. Charley always had a big garden, and they had the biggest upright deep freezer I had ever seen. It really impressed me. We didn’t have anything like that. He always had a smile on his face and loved to talk Bible. He read a lot and taught Sunday school for years. When we had our Church in Linn Grove, he would come with Sister Em to some of our services. He got the revelation of the correct form of the water baptism. Instead of “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”, he understood the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is the Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t know if he was ever baptized again, but I know that he had the revelation. Brother Branham did open the mysteries of the seven seals and seven thunders. God used him in a special way to this twentieth century Church Age. I’m so thankful for the revelation and that I could receive it at my age. Charley wanted to come to my daughter Lois’ wedding, but he died one week before she was married. He and my brother, Ed, both died of heart disease. Charley and Esther had a nice family. We lost Dorothy a number of years ago. Last time I saw her was at a reunion and her family was with her. My Dad died a week after he attended his brother’s funeral. He got sick after standing bare headed in the rain at the cemetery. My sister, Em, tells me how faithful her nephews and nieces are about coming to visit with her at the Christian Care Nursing Home. She appreciates all those that take the time to come and visit with her. She and Bill were good to all of us and I think everyone has appreciated their kindness through the years. Charley and Esther would be so pleased to see how their children try to take time to get together and stay close. I was impressed when they invited Sister Em and I to join them one time and they told us that they did this every so often. God bless them for that. Often we see families that haven’t time for each other and put values at the wrong places. Life is too short to neglect the important things. My sister, Fan, married Rueben Moser and they had a daughter, Justine. Rueben had the flu in 1918, during the epidemic. No one wanted to take care of him, not even his own Mother. Everyone was afraid of getting it. Then my Mother offered. She said, "I won’t get it," and she didn’t. She gave Rueben good care but he did die. So many died during that bad epidemic in 1918. After a few years, Fan married Eli Reineck, who had lost his wife during the flu epidemic. He had a small son named Homer, so they each had a child. Eli and Fan had four sons - Kenny, the twins; Richard and Raymond, and Dale. They lived in Bluffton on Wabash Street for a few years. Kenny and the twins were born there. I think Dale was born after they moved to Cherry Street. Anyway, while they lived on Wabash Street, we would go down to Paxton’s Island by the Wabash River and play. One time, I stepped on glass and cut my foot. I had to hop up the hill to get back to my sister, Fan’s house. She cleaned the cut and while she went to the kitchen, I looked at the cut spreading it apart. I landed on my head on the floor. First time I ever fainted. I fainted two other times that I remember. Peg Kaehr and I skipped church and were sitting in my car when she told me of things that happened when she was in nurses training. She made everything sound really ickie and I fainted and hit my head on the steering wheel. The third time I fainted was in Sunday school in the Apostolic Christian Church. I was sick with hepatitis for two weeks. After that I could never donate my blood. While I was recuperating, Dr. Truman Caylor made a house call to check on me and I remember he stayed and visited with me. He told me if I was ever in a car accident I should always turn off the ignition so the car wouldn’t go up in flames. I remembered that when I wrecked my cousin, Chris Gerber’s car and I turned it off right away. We use to look forward to the medicine men coming to Paxton’s Island. They’d come in their covered wagons and really put on a show for us. They sold worm medicine. In those days a lot of people had worms or these traveling salesmen convinced them that they did. Anyway, these medicine men would have jars of worms to show us. People would see them and get to thinking that they might have worms like that in their bodies, so they would buy the stuff. They would even throw handfuls of nickels, dimes, and pennies into the crowd and what a stampede there would be. Just anything to draw a crowd. These shows had to take second place to the Bluffton Free Street Fair though. Back in the late 1920’s when I was a youngster, they would let us out of school and the children would follow the bands, as they would go from one free act to the other. Things were safe in those days. From Wabash Street, the Reinecks moved to West Cherry Street and lived there a number of years. We had good times and bad times there. One time Eli was cleaning the chimney and Ramie was standing beneath. He was just a little boy. He was looking up watching his Dad when part of the chimney fell on Ramie’s head. It was awful. Ray still has the scar on his forehead but it’s not noticeable. Ray is a handsome man. He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force. He is retired now and he and his wife, Sarah, live in Reno, Nevada. The Reinecks moved to Spring Street and had a nice home and several acres where the family enjoyed living for a number of years. The boys made swings from one tree to the other and could swing like Tarzan. I tried it and nearly hit the tree. That house was a fun house. They had a sofa in the basement you could jump on and hit your head on the ceiling. I remember Kenny and his Dad at the table. Kenny sat beside his Dad and every time Kenny would say something, he would duck because his Dad didn’t agree with everything Kenny would say and his Dad would swat him. It was funny, but I generally took sides with Kenny. After they left Spring Street, they moved to the Aaron Moser farm. He was Justine’s Granddad. They bought that and lived there the rest of Fan’s life. The day of our reunion in 1955, Fan and Eli had a car accident on Route 1, south of Fort Wayne, in front of the airport golf course. She lived for five days but never regained consciousness. We stopped having reunions for thirty years. Then, Em and I decided to get them started again and we’ve been having them every two years. Richard and Kenny both live in California with their families. They are both faithful to their old Aunts, and call us once in a while. Richard doesn’t forget to call me on my birthday even when I’m down here at Sid’s. They both called this year.Thanks, Ken and Rich. I appreciated hearing your voices. I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of their families – maybe at the next reunion. We lost Justine about eight or nine years ago. She was with Ray and Sarah in Florida when she passed away. Justine and I grew up together and enjoyed each other’s company. We were close friends and were so sorry we lost touch during the later years. I remember