A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

keogh

Snapshot Saturday: Aug. 27

Another blast from the past!

In regard to Snapshot Saturday posts, this might be the mother load.

At the family reunion, my father’s cousin, Jim Keogh, brought this photo up. It was incredible. It has Harmers and Keoghs in the image. He was gracious enough to send me a scan of it.

This is awesome. And as I work toward a photo album of family images, this will be one of my favorites.

It was taken in the spring of 1941.

Harmers and Keoghs, Spring 1941

Pictured:

Front row: Joe Harmer, Adeline Keogh (holding James Keogh 3rd, keeper of this wonderful image), Philip Keogh, James Keogh Sr., Frank Harmer (my dad, seated in middle), Catherine Keogh, Frances Harmer (my grandmother) holding Phil Harmer, Grace Keogh holding Kathleen Keogh and Catherine Harmer.

Back row: Jimmy Harmer, James Keogh Jr., Elizabeth Keogh (Sister Catherine Frances), John Harmer Sr (my grandfather) and John Harmer Jr.

My Aunt Mary and my father’s cousins Louise, Phil and Bob Keogh weren’t yet born, which is even cooler with this photo. Way too wild to see things like this.

I have received a lot of family images for this photo book I am putting together. If any members of my family — from my mother’s side of my father’s side — has more, please contact me. I’ll gladly pay for shipping costs to and from to get the images and scan them, or scanned images can be e-mailed to me. They don’t have to all be older photos. Newer photos are accepted as well. Please, however, identify everyone in the photo so I can do so in the photo book.

I’d like to finish this photo book by the end of the year or early next year. I am thinking the book will be somewhere in the range of 200-300 pages.  Depending on the size I go with the book, will likely fall anywhere in the price range of $75-$150. I realize this isn’t chump change, so I’m letting everyone ow in case they want to eventually purchase one. It basically comes down to the way I handle the photos (one per page, several per page etc.)

But first things first, please contact me if you have photos you want to send. If e-mailed, I need scans to be large so I can work with them for the book.

Enjoy and I look forward to hearing from all of you!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!

A reunion to remember

All of us at the Family Reunion in 2011

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family.  Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” – Jane Howard

Success!

After much planning and many e-mails, phone calls, Facebook messages, help from family members and other things, our first true family reunion (that I remember, anyway) went off with pretty solid weather, great food and a lot of people this past weekend.

We had nearly 50 people show up in Oneonta’s Wilber Park for the event. The range of ages was amazing and having people from my mother’s and father’s sides of the family there was awesome. Nearly 50 people showed up for the event and I had the chance to meet relatives I had not met before, which is really wild.

Family members chatting

I couldn’t have asked for a better day, either.

With rain in the forecast, originally, there was sun, good weather and a lot to do. We had good food, games and available things for kids to do. I’m not sure I could have asked for a better result.

Some things I learned, however. First, we ordered way too much chicken! With all the other food available, there was too much chicken. I’ll note that for next time. I also learned that there are so many stories to be told. I learned things about my father and that side of the family from different relatives. I learned about some family things from the opposite side, too.

At one point, I really let it soak in.

I was having my dinner, sitting across from my brother’s girlfriend’s son. As we chatted about normal things, I peered around and looked at everyone eating. I couldn’t help but smile.

Chatting it up.

I saw both sides of the family mingling.

Everyone seemed happy and joyous. Somewhere, I knew my dad (who would have loved this, by the way) was looking down and smiling. He would have been in his glory at an event like this.

It’s times like this when you have to appreciate family and know that those who have gone before us have paved the way for us. For many years, I always let work or other obligations get in the way of me going to certain family functions. An event like this made me realize that it’s time to make up that lost time.

I would call the event a success.

Mingling

It seems like most people had fun and enjoyed the spot we were in. It was perfect. We had a pavilion, set up games, a playground was close for kids, the pool wasn’t too far away and there was hiking trails and other things to do. But, people seemed to be just as interested in chatting and getting together. We started at noon and ended a bit after 9 p.m. I left realizing that this is something I want to continue doing.

So, the planning is on for the next one. I haven’t decided if I will attempt to do it yearly or every two years. I am leaning toward yearly, but understand that not everyone will be able to make it each year. Still, time moves on and getting together once a year, in my mind, is highly worth the effort. I have ideas and I plan on working on them slowly.

For now? I’ll sit back and enjoy what we had this past weekend. Then, I’ll start looking toward the next one soon enough.

To all those family members who made the trip — thanks for coming! And I look forward to seeing you at the next one!

And, of course, would it be a family reunion without a fun video during the group shot?

“Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family.  Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted.”  – Paul Pearshall

Photos from the reunion on my Flickr: Check out the set.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Day Zero Project: Completed No. 85

Chatting during the reunion.

A Day Zero Project goal of P.J.’s has been completed!

Goal completed: Organize and hold a family reunion.

Date completed: August 13, 2011.

Number: 85  (remember, these goals will not all be done in order. It’s a random list where the numbers actually are).

Description: Basically, I wanted to start something for a family reunion. The idea was to get the family from my mother’s and father’s side of the family to come together for a reunion. As anyone who has tried to do these knows, it isn’t easy to try and get all schedules together. But with the help of my mother, my brother, their significant others and a few others, we pulled it off.

Why I wanted to do it: I won’t like — in the past, I haven’t always been the most “family oriented” person. Not that I didn’t love family, but that I’ve missed some family functions and gatherings. And, to be honest, it was time to start seeing family at something other than weddings and funerals. Too, a bit before my father died, he had said that family is important (he was a fan of gatherings such as this) and said I needed to make sure to find a way to start getting the family together (he always thought we should have a yearly reunion). So, that was fuel for me to go at it.

How I did it: A few years ago, I got talking about this with my cousin Lauren. She kind of gave me a push to see if I could get it going. The push that was needed was to see if we could get our family (who, for the most part, is in the Philadelphia area and New Jersey). She said she and her family would come and build from there. It took longer than expected as I realized you couldn’t do this in two months. So we skipped a year and aimed for this year. We got some initial feedback on everything and then finally came up with a date.

Considering we were using a city park in Oneonta, we needed to reserve the pavilion. But, you can’t do that until March, so we needed to wait until then to make sure of the date. When that was done, we put it all in motion. Figured the food, some other things and started getting headcounts. We have a Facebook group just for this (which I’ll keep for future reunions) and some family members have connected. With the help of the family in this area (a shout out, of course, goes to my mother, brothers Pat and Joe, sister-in-law Jenn and Pat’s favorite dudette (inside joke) Dawn), we got everything together we needed. Family from afar came up with help as needed, some wonderful food and an amazing time.

This reunion, in my eyes, was a resounding success. I’ve learned a lot (I will be doing another blog post this week about the reunion and will expand there), but with nearly 50 people there, it’s something I know I want to do again, yearly if possible. There are things that will be fixed and tweaked, but knowing more now, I hope the event will just continue to grow!

About P.J.’s Day Zero Project: Day Zero is a project where people come up with 101 things to do over 1001 days. I started the project on Oct. 10, 2010 with an anticipated finish date of July 8, 2013. Goals will not be revealed until they are completed. A private list is at the Day Zero website and the list will be made public upon completion of the project. It’s my thoughts that if things are kept private, should I not do them, change or find a way around it, I’d only be cheating myself.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.