Last Updated
Aug 2009
This is a narrative of the KNOWN reunions held by the decendants. If you know of other reunions, please email Jeff Anderson at sc33cs@yahoo.com.
The earliest documented reunion was held Wednesday August 26 1904 known as
the 17th
Annual Reunion of the Anderson Family. This ribbon was located in the LaMerl
Catt estate papers obtained from Margaret McLaughlin. This places this Anderson
trees first 'formal' reunion about 1887. The location and exact
date
are currently
unknown.
The Wednesday August 23
1905 reunion was heralded as the 18th
Annual Reunion of the Anderson Family.
The 1905 reunion document is paramount in tying together the different Anderson
and relation branches throughout the United States. It also brings under
the microscope additional family names and raises additional questions.
Note that Ralph Carrol Leisure (b:Mar 1 1905 d: Jan 1980) information references an "article covering the Anderson Reunion in a Greenfield paper, dated August, 1895". To date this has not been located. This reference was found in the History of Hancock County Indiana under Ralph Carrol Leisure biography. The biography spoke of an 1895 newspaper notice about the reunion. This has been researched by Jeff Anderson and has not been substantiated in the newspaper microfilm.
The earliest recorded Anderson reunion
in
Ohio that is documented occurred in 1910. (This held the Anderson-history.com
record
from
August 2003 until September 2008) Held
in
the
Montgomery
County
Fair
Grounds
in
Dayton
Ohio,
this reunions
mailing notice read " The twenty third annual reunion of
the Anderson Family will be held at Montgomery County Fair Grounds in Dayton
Ohio Thursday Aug. 25 1910, to which you are cordially invited and earnestly
requested to attend. Yours respectively W. S. Anderson Pres Dayton Ohio,
Chas S Anderson Sec. Stockwell,
Ind. See Munden
book
This is important because this indicates that there were Anderson Reunions in Dayton Ohio as early as 1887.
The LaMerl
Catt estate papers contained a number of had written diaries which spanned from
1912 to 1971. The August 27 1913 entry reads "Mama
and I went to Anderson Reunion at G-field." A reference to the reunion in Greenfield Indiana.
The August
15th 1915 entry reads "To Anderson Reunion at Brookside Park".
Brookside Park is located in Brightwood Indiana, now a suburb of Indianapolis.
A currently known reunion, was held at Elwood
Indiana 1920, was organized by Frank R. Anderson. Attending this reunion
was two elderly gentlemen from Ohio who we have not been able to identify, but
are believed to be related via those Anderson's who remained in Ohio
with James Anderson and Mary (Schnorf)
Anderson when Charles Byron migrated to Shelby County. These men can be seen
standing on the far right of the 1920 reunion photo. This reunion was moved in the 1940's to
Alexandria Indiana.
Frank R Anderson started keeping Anderson family genealogy in the 1920's and was instrumental in keeping the Anderson
family reunions annual along with Burley Anderson - president, and Howard Anderson -vice president, Frank R acted
as Secretary. These can be determined from the reunion rosters and minutes.
At many of the early reunions, brothers Everret Maurice, Elbert Howard and William
Clyde Anderson, sons of James Howard Anderson, played their musical instruments.
These brothers had a band called the Four Leaf Clovers (Joe
Kipin - banjo, Everret - Madolin, Elbert - banjo & guitar, Clyde - banjo & piano),
which played in local
nightclubs in the Indianapolis Indiana.
Leslie Lowell Anderson, their younger brother reminisced that Elbert had small
lights behind the onionskin of the banjo that lit up as
he played. The brothers had moved to Indianapolis from Pendleton before the parents
moved. James Howard did not want to move to Indianapolis, but could not find
work in Pendleton. Prior to the move, in 1936 James sent Leslie
Lowell to live with Everret and his first wife so that he could attend school
in Indianapolis at School 39. Everret at that time was employed at Kibler trucking,
truckers for A&P grocery, on south State Street.
The family of James (possible James A) Anderson, son of James Anderson and brother to Charles B Anderson descendants
have a Quinquennial reunion held at Lake Shafer
near Monticello Indiana. For a week each time, beginning in 1963 and continuing every 5th year thereafter. This
event brings together all the descendants of Herbert and Edna Anderson and their families along with other family
members.
