Yello!

We’ve had a couple of great family week-ends. On Sept. 17 we joined Bill, Edith, Jason, Tanya and girls for a brunch in Lincoln with Dr. Robert Hayes, his wife Helen and daughter Janet. Dr. Bob is my dad’s first cousin – my grandpa, Herbert, and his dad, Orin, were brothers. It had been too many years since we were last together and it was a wonderful reunion. We hope to do it again in the next year when, hopefully, more members of the Hayes family will be able to join us.

This past week-end we drove to Burke, South Dakota for the 100th birthday party for Francis’ dads first cousin, Earl Whidden of Bonesteel, SD. It was great! Since we are the only Whidden family in the entire state of Nebraska, it was good to get together with a few other Whidden’s from Texas, Connecticut and South Dakota. The conversation was lively and Earl’s smile just kept getting bigger – he enjoyed it immensely, as did everyone else.

Both our Hayes and Whidden families have been in this country for a long time. The Hayes family came (probably from Scotland or Ireland) to this country around 1620 to the Virginia area. Icabod Whidden and his sons left the Portsmouth, England area and arrived at Portsmouth, ME in the 1640’s.

All in all, the experiences of our past two weeks help us to realize that our families are definitely a link to our past that help to define who we are and also a supportive bridge to our future as well. Alex Haley must have known what he was talking about! The pictures that follow are of our recent Hayes (first) and Whidden (second) family reunions.