Unruh Cousins Reunion

Last Thursday we headed out after Justin got off work, we picked up my mom and made our way to Guymon. We got there about 8:30 and spent the night there. The next morning we left and drove to Alamosa, Colorado to pick up my dad who had been Elk hunting the week before. After a really good and somewhat spicy hot Mexican meal we went on to Westcliffe, to Hermit Basin Lodge. Some of the family had planned the first ever Unruh Cousins reunion. There ended up being about seventeen families represented from the 10 children born to Cornelius and Julia Unruh. One of those children was my grandma Minnie Wieler. All of the 10 children have passed on and several of their children have passed on also, but almost all of the surviving first cousins were able to make it, along with several of the next generations. Some traveling from Canada, Oklahoma, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Most of them I had already met, but there were a couple of them that were new acquaintances. We had a great time catching up and learning more about our family tree. We spent a lot of time looking at old pictures that some had brought and talking about years past.

This is all of the first cousins that were able to make it to the reunion. Back row: Paul Howerton, Hank Siemens, Louise Jassman, Bud Penner and Willis Ratzlaff. Front row: My dad, Judy Laubach, Marie Sept and Norma Adler.

This is a picture of the cousins born into the family not including the spouses. The additions to the top picture are Tex Wiebe, Doug Sept, Pam Blackburn, Vernon Wiebe, Me and Candace Adler.

We did some fun things too, including a day trip to Bishop's Castle, hiking and going into town and doing some shopping. We also had to make some special trips in to get ice cream cones. The weather was perfect. We could wear shorts in the mornings, but then in the evenings we would have to resort to jeans and jackets. We had such a good time.

This is Bishop's Castle. An interesting place to visit, it is built by hand by one man determined to do it all by himself. He has been working on it for 30 years and it is still a work in progress. He is on hand there working and visiting with all the people that stop to see the castle. You can go all the way to the very top of the highest point and most of our group did. You can't even see the top on this picture. I couldn't get the whole thing in.

Justin and I found this cool carving and log bench downtown Westcliffe, while we were on our shopping trip. We even stumbled onto a pioneer day parade.

This was the whole group that made the trek to Colorado for the Labor Day weekend. It was kind of tricky trying to get every one in the picture. The shirts were really cool. The front was a tree with all the names starting with my great grandparents Cornelius and Julia Unruh and all their children. On the back, since we are of German decent, was a long list of German words. I had no clue what most of them were.

We were told what they all said. I should have written them down, because I will never remember what they are.