It was July 1959 at 2:00 a.m. when the Indiana families of Helen Brown and Dorothy Osborn piled four adults and four children and into one Buick and began the drive from South Bend, Indiana to Alexandria, Virginia for a reunion of the four siblings and their families. How might you ask does one get eight people into a Buick? This was accomplished by having three in the front seat, four in the back and a little stool on the floor in the back seat, which every child was required to sit on at some point during the long trip. I still remember the discomfort of my turn on the little stool. My father remembers his legs going numb from how crowded we all were.  At the end of the long trip we were given a big welcome in Alexandria, by the Seitz families of Edwin and Eugene. The complete group added up to eight adults and ten children. 

The adults wanted a night out, so the two teenagers (Martha and Karen) were recruited to baby-sit the other eight children. The adults decided to go to a fancy restaurant (Collingswood on the Potomac) and Aunt Dottie made a large pan of lasagna for the children to eat. (I didn’t like lasagna at the time and wasn’t looking forward to dinner.) The parents dressed up in their Sunday best and Aunt Dottie made the lasagna for the children. When it was done, the lasagna was carried to the rec room in the lower level (by whom, I don't remember) and on the way down the stairs the lasagna spilled all over the wall.  

I still remember the smell of lasagna and poor Aunt Dottie in her good clothes scraping it off the wall. I don’t remember what we ate. Maybe there were some morsels left in the pan. The wall got more than we did, I’m sure.