My niece Janet Hamblin Smith had a brilliant idea a couple of years ago that she would like to renew acquaintance with some of her Huggins cousins with whom she had formed friendships when they were all much younger. That idea slowly developed and finally blossomed into a full-blown Huggins Cousins Reunion. Bette, Marcie, and Georgia are the only aunts still around, so they were invited to represent the first generation Huggins kids.
The reunion was held in Alpine, Utah, Saturday, August 19, 2017. Janet was the overseer and the hostess, having logged literally countless hours in planning and executing a fun afternoon for over 75 family members who were able to attend. All came with the giddy anticipation of seeing people that belonged to their family. Lots of pictures were taken, and I was apprehensive about seeing them because I am so very un-photogenic. But I was pleasantly surprised to see I didn't look half bad--and I know it was because I was genuinely happy to see everyone and be with my family. It reflected in my face.
As an added treat for those of us who lived in Rawlins, George Huggins who is our first cousin, came to represent Uncle Aft's family. ( Grandpa Huggins' brother's son.)
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| Georgia and George at the Huggins Cousins Reunion |
Janet asked me to prepare a trivia game with some Huggins Family history that we could play as a group during the festivities. I had a good time reading through journals, bits and pieces of writing my mother had jotted down, and memories the family had of Grandpa and Grandma Huggins.
In one of the boxes where I found several small notebooks in which Grandma Huggins chronicled her days--like a diary--I discovered this picture of me and George. It was one of those pictures in a booth that came in a strip of four for 25 cents. We were probably eight or nine. No date....
I do remember when the one below was taken, probably about 1956 or 1957. It was during one of the trips Uncle Aft spearheaded to Denver with my dad and mom and probably only Marcia and me in our car, as well as Uncle Aft, Aunt Fern and George Lee in their car. We went to Lakeside Amusement Park, Museum of Natural History and lots of other amazing places to kids who lived in a hick town in Wyoming. Wonderful memories.
And, as I was reminiscing, I remembered something I wrote about that relationship in one of the Nichols Family Newsletters years ago. That is where I rediscovered this picture of George and me. Cousins are great!
· A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost. Marion C. Garretty
·
By the time I showed
up in the Huggins/Crane extended families, most of my first cousins were
already parents and some were soon-to-be grandparents. On my dad’s side only my adopted cousin
George Huggins, who lived up the street from me in Rawlins, was younger that I
was. Two other boy cousins, who were
sons of my dad’s sister, were just two and four years older than me. Their siblings were all older, too. My
Grandma Huggins lived with them in the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake
City. We didn’t see them often. But when
we did, I don’t remember much more than a feeling of their superiority because
Grandma lived upstairs in their house on Blaine Avenue. However, when I was a freshman at BYU, there
was a knock on the door one Sunday night and there stood Terry Reid, the
younger one, who was dating a girl in our dorm and somehow recognized my
name. He had just returned from his
mission and was one handsome man! Too
bad he was a cousin—and engaged to be married.
·
On my mom’s side of the family, only
Aunt Cornelia and Uncle Bill had kids younger than I was. Fred Butterfield was just older than I and
his sisters Ralphene and Helen were both younger. They lived in Herriman, Utah, on the same
block as Grandma Crane’s tiny little cottage. (They all suffered from asthma,
and their house always smelled like urine.
So, I equated the two. I was
shocked years later to find out that asthma had to do with lungs—not kidneys!) Truthfully, I don’t know Uncle
Bill’s kids, but I did run into some of them at BYU. Not really interested in forming some kind of
relationship, though my mother would have liked that. (I can understand that now, not then.)So George Huggins, and my second cousin Lynn Butterfield (daughter of my mother’s first cousin Tony), were the only cousins that were close enough in age—and location—to have any kind of friendship. I was born in December 1945. George’s birthday was Washington’s birthday in 1946 (February 22nd). Lynn was also born in 1946 but not until September 13th. The three of us were all in the same grade, as Lynn barely made the cut-off which was September 15th. We lived within a few blocks of each other and all went to Mountain View School. George and I had the same teachers the last few years of elementary school, but Lynn was always in the opposite class (every grade had two classes). Obviously, we all went to Church together, too. The early years we were often together playing at each other’s houses or when our whole families went to the mountains for a huge campout together.
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