Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Memorial Day in the South

Lynn and I had an unusual Memorial Day but no parades or the traditional nearly by gone commemoration. Sort of felt unpatriotic.

At noon Chuck and Marie Kieser came by as we had invited them at the annual AC Tennessee Sing, which we attended on Saturday evening. Chuck is a second cousin of mine that we hadn't seen for fifty years. My memory of him is that of a tall, wide eyed young boy. But our roots are the same so we had much in common. They left soon after lunch and mid-afternoon we left for Fayetteville to meet a Donald Klopfenstein and his wife, who live in Murfreesboro. And you can guess how we learned about him: yes, genealogy! Anyway, it turned out to be a small world as he knew about Perry and his business and also had a poster in his garage from Ralph's Illinois Senate campaign. So he was surprised that Lynn was of that lineage. His aunt is JoAnne Conrad and we knew several of his aunts as well as his widowed mother. He plans to attend the K reunion on 6/21--a really nice fellow and you would enjoy meeting him.
On the way to Fayetteville we stopped to see Mary and Joey's progress in unpacking in their recently purchased home. So that was our Memorial Day.
Mim

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like an interesting Day.
Crystal was on a missionary workteam in January with Chuck Kieser. I recall him mostly as friendly and a very, very intelligent radiologist with spiritual and intellectual depth.
(gets this from the Hemmer/Martin side??). Amazing -- your Klopfenstein findings in an Alabama garage of a man who knew of Uncle Perry. Speaking of Perry,... Perry II and Crystal just returned Sunday from 8 days on a missionary trip to Jamaica. I may try to post a picture of them on the blog. Congrats to Mary and Joey on the new home...I'll quit rambling now...
Cleve

Maria said...

Interesting to hear of your day. We hosted Scott & Abby Klopfenstein here this weekend as they traveled to KC with the Indy choir. They plan to be at the K reunion and are enthused about it. His dad is Lynn from Leo, IN

We went to a very patriotic event Sunday evening where the KC Symphony had an outdoor concert at Union Station. They estimated 40,000 in attendance! They played patriotic songs with an inspiring speaker/host followed by fireworks over the WWI Liberty Memorial. The only remaining WWI survivor (107) was in attendance and honored. It was one of those times when you get a lump in your throat several times....esp when you're pregnant :)

Our Monday was not nearly as patriotic as we spent most of the day cleaning out the basement!

Anonymous said...

Cleve--
Two corrections/omissions:
Murfreesboro and Fayetteville are in Tennessee instead of Alabama.

No, Chuck Kieser has no connection with Hemmer/Martin genes. Go out another rung on the ladder to the Rassi connection. He obviously got more than his share of the depth you mention!

Maria--
Scott Klopfenstein used to come to
Alabama fairly often with his parents. Haven't seen him since he was a boy and look forward to seeing him at the reunion!

Anonymous said...

Oops--I forgot to identify myself again. It's me, Mim