A few more Witmer facts and a good song

What a rainy, dreary Monday!  This kind of weather, added to the feeling of disappointment that a fun week is over, seems to go right along with eating things I should not eat and not getting exercise.   But at least I'm not facing shoulder surgery this week, as I was last year at this time!  And I don't have a speeding ticket to pay, as I did last year at this time.  So there's lots to be thankful for!

I do want to share some more things about my Witmer reunion.   Last evening I was overcome with curiosity about just exactly how many people are in this huge Witmer family.  So I took the directory that was made especially for this reunion, and I counted every person that's living, including the spouses, as well as the foster and adopted grandchildren and great-grandchildren, which is not uncommon in this family.  Here are the true facts:

In 1917 Elam Witmer and Katie Wenger got married.  (They were second cousins, by the way!)  They had 10 children and 56 grandchildren.    Now, 96 years later, there are 1,013 people in this family.  They are living in 29 states here in the US plus 9 other countries!  Now that's almost a movement!

As I said in the previous post, we did a good bit of singing on Saturday, all of it by memory.  Dick recorded one song on his iPhone.  I really wanted to share it, but I don't know how to convert a voice memo into something that can be put on a blog or Facebook.  So I played the song on my computer while I also ran through my "Beautiful Scenes" Picasa file, and I videoed it with my phone!  Very, very unsophisticated technology!  In fact, a lot of the pictures are ones I "stole" from other people, so you may recognize your pictures, haha!  So just enjoy the singing!

A picture I did not post the other evening (because I was too sleepy to explain who the people are) is this one.  It's the "children" who are still living and  their spouses, as well as the spouses of the "children" who are no longer living.  Did you follow that?

Back row:  My Uncle Luke and his wife Dorothy; my Uncle John and his wife Evelyn; my Aunt Lois and her husband Clarence Good; my Aunt Grace and her husband David Shenk; my late Aunt Jean's husband John Bender with his second wife Doris.

Front row:  My Aunt Arlene (her husband Lester Hertzler passed away 3 years ago); my dad's second wife Mary (you all know her as Grandma Mary!); and my late Uncle Roy's wife Miriam Wine.  Her second husband Norman was not at the reunion.   

If any of this interests you, that's great.  But I mostly wanted to write all this for my own memory's sake.  I just love details, and more and more I love history.  I guess that means I'm old!