On The Mark: Family history runs through our reunions

I've long admired the way some area families are so locally present. Hosting a reunion requires little more than picking a date, sending out the word and preparing food. Since the last Stillwater reunion in 2006, my generation of an extraordinarily dispersed family has taken the initiative, organizing a reunion in Cambria, California (2014) and this July back in Minnesota.

Our Markusen/Lee/Wilson family settled in Stillwater in the late 1880s, our forefathers and foremothers generating lots of progeny. Over the years, we've radiated out. A goodly number live in Minnesota, in Duluth, Cloquet, Cromwell and the Twin Cities area, and Wisconsin. Others range from Washington, D.C. to Montana to the central coast of California.

We are all - eight generations - descended from Chester Sumner Wilson (1922-2011) and his wife, Ruth Wells Moody (1827-1900), charted in a genealogical roadmap generated by cousin Beth Wilson. Early New England settlers, these families had migrated west to upstate New York and then to late 19th-century Stillwater, booming with logging and sawmills.

I decided to take on the convening role this time around. It was a sobering lesson in the rigors of serving as an event planner - especially when one is not living in the chosen locale, Stillwater. I compiled 100-plus email addresses, some of which bounced back as incorrect or inactive.

I asked those living close to Stillwater to suggest a banquet venue. We hit the jackpot with the Waterstreet Inn. Built in 1890 by lumber barons as the Lumber Exchange Building and adjacent to the Union Depot, it's being restored as a hotel and conference center. In its heyday, it was equipped with heating, plumbing, electricity and one of the first elevators in Minnesota. In addition to a buffet with vegetarian options, they provided a projector and screen and threw in extra tables for our genealogies, framed photos, and past reunion Memory Book. And, we could stay as late as we wished. Which we did, taking a long riverside walk in the middle of the afternoon and returning for more photos and reminiscing.

Before the midday banquet, we met up first at the lovely, hilly Fairview Cemetery, where so many of our ancestors are buried. We strolled among the gravestones, greeting each other, explaining who was who. Rod met an in-law whom he much enjoyed, husband of another third cousin. They began sharing funny stories right off.

At 10 a.m., some 30 of us, all ages, tromped in the front door of the old Stillwater prison's Warden's House. I'd arranged a two-hour visit with Brent Peterson. He wonderfully took us through the early history of Stillwater: its logging days, infamous prison, and role in early statehood. He knew a great deal about our grandfathers, Frank Wilson, and Orris E. Lee, my grandfather, married to Frank's sister. He's compiled an account of Stillwater's Company K in the border war with Mexico in 1916, including full texts of letters that Orris wrote home daily to his wife and daughters. We could barely get out of there - so many questions, so much high-energy excitement.

The highlight of the day, sandwiched in between conversations with cousins I've known all my life or just met, was an afternoon slide show, lovingly compiled and narrated by Steve Tryon, Ruth Wilson Tryon's son. Our cousin, Stillwater's Fred Lee Anderson, well up in his 90s, joined us. Frank Wilson was an early and skilled black-and-white photographer. We visited every one of the 10 families generated by Frank and his sister Katherine (Orris' wife). And many of us pitched in with stories about remarkable characters, and their foibles, from each branch. Lots of questions, lots of laughter. A few tears.

That evening we dispersed to various eateries. Rod and I ended up with Stillwater cousin Karin, Taylors Falls cousin Heron, and cousins Bruce and Cherie from Cambria, California. We found a lovely little wine bar with good food and talked a lot about life and politics. Bruce serves as an elected supervisor for San Luis Obispo County. He regaled us with stories of how he patiently negotiates with recently elected Trump-allied naysayers, works with challenged small towns to make improvements, and insisted that the state's transportation department redo highway shoulders that made biking practically impossible for bike tourists. The next day, cousins from D.C. to Cambria to Cromwell paddled canoes down the St. Croix from Taylors Falls to Osceola, finishing with an intergenerational lunch at Taylors Falls' drive-in.

Public service is a Wilson and Lee family tradition. Frank served six years as superintendent of Stillwater Schools and 10 years as a probate judge in Washington County. He helped to create the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, served as its commissioner, and initiated the creation of Afton State Park. I believe he also served as a judge in one of the Lake Superior asbestos dumping cases, but haven't found collaboration for that. My elders believe that my Grandfather Orris E. Lee was the first lawyer to defend a black man in Minnesota - I'm trying to track that down.

I'm grateful to my cousins and our young ones for continuing these family history gatherings. We're hoping the next generation will carry on.

Ann Markusen is an economist and professor emerita at University of Minnesota. A Pine Knot board member, she lives in Red Clover Township north of Cromwell with her husband, Rod Walli.