The Dimmicks had their first

ever family reunion in July.

Alice Betty didn't make it.

My dad's only brother Fred married young and raised a large family in

Savannah. My first cousins were born between 1913 and 1925, a decade before

my parents married. Not surprisingly, I did not know these folks as I

was growing up in Pennsylvania, and we've really only recently become

acquainted.

They're nice people who have

had interesting lives, and I've enjoyed the time I've spent with them.

But soon it will be too late.

Our daughter Jean surprised

me pleasantly by opting to come to the reunion, and I looked forward to

introducing her to my cousins and their children, grands, and great-grands.

I especially wanted her to meet Alice Betty, the second oldest and a true

survivor who had outlived two husbands, several serious accidents, and

breast cancer.

When I first met her, about

10 years ago, we moved instantly from being strangers to being friends,

truly family, even though she was then in her 70s and 20 years my senior.

Sharp as a tack, despite her health problems, she filled me in on scores

of names and dates for the generations following ours. She was delighted

with my research and contributed most of the contemporary information

I typed into my genealogy program.

The July reunion started at

a borrowed beach cottage at Tybee Island, and as we climbed the sun-bleached

steps to a large screen porch, I could hear a hubbub of voices, occasional

laughter, the squeal of children darting in and out.

Cousin Jack met me at the door

with a bear hug. I've known him the best, and have the softest spot in

my heart for him because of his resemblance to my father, who died in

1957.

It took a moment for my eyes

to adjust after the bright sunlight, but I identified Jack's daughters,

then Cousins Bob and Claire. Moving from group to group, I registered

names and faces, trying to connect the data I had in my computer with

the swirl of faces before me. It was futile. Yet a curious sense of belonging

surrounded me like the softly moving air from the ceiling fans in that

crowded porch.

Cousin Bill, my uncle's oldest

(named for my dad, as my brother Fred was named for my uncle), died in

1997. He was reclusive and I never met him.

I was about to say, "What

a shame one is missing," when I realized that Alice Betty was not

there either. Before the question left my lips, I knew the answer by the

stricken looks on their faces. Alice Betty died in February, and was buried

on her 85th birthday. And, true to the distance historically between us,

no one had let me know.

I spent the next few days trying

to sort out names and connections, and just when I thought I had a family

group straight, I didn't. It was like a giant moving jigsaw puzzle, and

the fact that the divorce rate approaches the national average didn't

help at all.

The program for the second

day was simple: barbecue at the Bamboo Farm, an experimental cane plantation

west of Savannah. We were going to eat, talk, take pictures, talk some

more, eat some more just being together.

We arrived first and I had

time to tape up two huge genealogy charts I had printed out before leaving

home. Now people either like family research or think it's silly and sentimental,

and I didn't have a clue into which group this crowd would fall.

I set up shop in a corner and

plugged in my laptop. Someone made an announcement that essentially declared

me Family Historian and exhorted folks to correct any omissions or errors

they found on the wall-chart.

I watched.

A few headed straight for it

and spent long minutes studying, tracing lines, trying to understand the

complex structure and where they fit in. Others sauntered past, glanced

at it casually, and started to walk on then paused, looked again, and

became mesmerized. I urged them to jot corrections on it, and little kids

seemed to take the greatest delight in finding their own names and writing

"THAT'S ME!" in the margins.

It was an unforeseen and unqualified

success.

Sunday was highlighted by a

low country boil at Cousin Jack's house which backs up on a creek that

runs into the nearby Wilmington River. The program was the same: eat and

talk.

Jack and Bob poured huge kettles

of shrimp and sausage and corn and potatoes onto long tables covered in

red-checkered vinyl. Jack's daughters presided over slaw and potato salad,

and the beer was icy. We ate until we could hardly move. (Looking back,

I'm glad now that we hadn't really launched into our low-fat regimen yet.)

The little ones, of course,

were not so immobilized as their elders. Someone had thoughtfully brought

along a small runabout and took kids for rides from the dock below the

sloping lawn. That left the shade of live oaks and picnic canopies for

the adults to escape the sultry heat by pulling chairs together and talking

some more.

Of all the stories swapped

during that memorable weekend, the two that intrigued me most were not

even about my own blood-kin. Come back next week and I'll pass them along...

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