Is your patriarch and/or matriarch of your reunion still alive? How do you recognize them? Do you recognize them each year? Perhaps even more importantly, if they have passed do you still acknowledge why you're there? If your reunion has been going on for a really long time (spanning generations) do the newer attendees understand how and why it started? You stand a much greater chance of enlisting the younger generation's help and garnering their support if they understand its origins.
A reunion is a tradition that gets started by a group of people. Traditions are malleable. They can change and they must if you want to keep them going. Without the support of a younger generation your reunion will die out. It's inevitable. If one or a tiny group of people claim ownership of a reunion and don't let anyone else in when they pass on so will the reunion. A reunion isn't about the people that are running it. A reunion is about the family. When you forget that you might as well stop and bury the thing now.
"Cayemberg Family Has Reunion (handwritten '1954')
The 17th reunion of the Cayemberg family was held at Pamperin Park Sunday with Mrs. Harvey Moureau and Mr. and Mrs. Felix Cayemberg, Ensign, Mich. in charge.
Mrs. Eli Cayemberg, 84-year-old mother of the group, received a purse from the members of her family. At present she is staying with the R. C. Andersons, 875 Shawano Ave.
Green Bay people present at the reunion include Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Moureau and family, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Gouin and daughter Susie Ann, and Mr. and Mrs. Roland Cayemberg and daughter Joan Linda.
The 1955 reunion will be held the first Sunday in June at Pamperin Park with Mrs. Pat Cayemberg, Mrs. Russell Anderson and Frank Cayemberg as chairmen."
The clipping was taken from a scrapbook handed down to me by my mother in law. No newspaper name was given, but other reunion articles were from the Green Bay Press Gazette.
