The second annual Smith Family Reunion in Oklahoma City was well attended and from what I hear enjoyed my many. Attendees came from across the country - Massachusetts to Northern California - and met in Oklahoma City to see one another again. Our Matriarch, Rosie Ellen Farrell, was there with copies of her autobiography and her children and grandchildren. The descendants of John Alvin Smith came out in force - it was wonderful for these two branches of the Julian Alvin Smith family to finally meet and share stories and photographs.
Next year's reunion is planned for Steamboat Springs, Colorado, sometime in June 2011. Preliminary plans call for making the trek from Steamboat Springs over to Moffat County, about ninety miles west of Craig to the homestead sites of James Wesley Smith (and his parents William Franklin and Sarah Frances Buckhanan Smith) and his brother Thomas Alvin Smith (two separate homesteads) in Bear Valley aka Bare Valley. There will also be visits to the cemeteries in Craig and Steamboat Springs.
June 2011 seems far in the future, long after Thanksgiving and Christmas 2010, but we all know how time has a way of excellerating and thrusting us into the future at an alarming rate so please make a mental note to mark your calendars in January for the Third Annual Smith Family Reunion in June 2011.
Any of you who took photographs at this most recent reunion in Oklahoma City - please send them to me, Pam Russell, at pamruss@frii.com, or write me for a snail mail address, as I would like to incorporate them into a 2011 calendar.
For a preview of what you might see at the homestead sites, or at least what previous visitors found go here Homesteads in Bare Valley.
