The 2005 Germanna Reunion is now history and it should be remembered as one of the best ones. The program has been outlined in the Foundation’s Web site www.germanna.org and I will not attempt to enumerate all of the activities. I will mention the ones that I attended, though.
On Friday evening, there was a barbeque dinner at the Madison County fire house where they had the foresight to build a large meeting room for a variety of purposes. We spent about two hours there, maybe more, in greeting people and talking to them and at the actual dinner. After the dinner we all drove about two miles to the Hebron Lutheran Church. There was a delightful program there in which the stars were Sven and Olaf Schneider, who were born in Trupbach. They are now profession musicians and live elsewhere. Sven is a specialist on the organ, but also plays the piano and sings. Olaf specializes in the trombone. So our concert at Hebron was organ music on the 1802 Tannenberg organ, accompanied by the trombone. The Schneiders, along with their father, Rudi, and Rudi’s friend, all paid their own way to America where they gave several concerts. When we took up a collection for the Schneiders, I believe that everyone opened up their hearts and purses in response. (I certainly hope so.)
On Saturday, we started early with the Seminar which had four speakers over the course of the day. I will have to take another Note to comment a bit about these presentations. At the end of the Seminar, I went with other Clore descendants to a small reception at Skip Poole’s at the Lake of the Wood. They allow me to come, even though I am not a descendant of Michael Clore, since I do descend from his sister Susanna. Later we met at Salubria for dinner under the tent and more conversation. The night closed with the auction of items brought by members which were sold for the benefit of the Foundation.
[The Foundation itself sold a new copy of Germanna Record Five (normally it sells for $35.00) in which the contents were bound upside down from the cover. To help out auctioneer Michael Oddenino (who needs very little help), I made a bid of $10.00 and no one bid any higher. Since I already own the book, I have no need for a second copy though it is apt to appreciate as that famous airmail stamp did. So if anyone would like to relieve me of this, send me an email. I was going to give it to the African-American Heritage Society of Fauquier County (members of which were present in the vendor’s room on Saturday), but they did not come back on Sunday which is the Lord’s Day.]
Sunday was a big day but I have run out of space here so it will have to wait. The highlight of the day was meeting the President of the United States.
(18 Jul 05)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.