We Must Move On . . .

One of the good things about Gamie's passing is the family coming together.  It takes a death, a birth or a wedding to do that.  Two are joyous occasions one is sad. We had to experience the sad event but once again the family coalesced.  We met, we cried and we laughed.  And we all lamented Gamie's passing.

I have heard from a lot of the family and seen even more at the funeral.  Some were friends, some were kissing cousins and some were total strangers to me.  Herrise had a lot of friends in Baton Rouge, a lot of them associated with the church.  That is a normal family following, we all have different elements, some a blood relatives and some are extended family.  Many came to pay their respects to Gamie.

I have heard from both coasts of the US, from California in the West and Delaware from the East.  Many could not attend the funeral, age and infirmity abound amongst us older members of the family.  Others had things intervene to prevent attendance, that is normal for our fluid society.  We are spread out now and one my laments is that we are gradually losing touch with elements of our family.

One element that keeps us in touch is the family farm, the plantation, Angeles Plantation.  Our annual business meeting is as much a meeting as it is a social gathering.  We get to see on occasion our cousins who all free to attend our social gathering.  You never know who is going to show up and who is not going to show up and that is reflective of our society also.  Some can and do come, some can not attend for a variety of reasons.  It does not matter, it makes it interesting.

I am in hopes the plantation keeps on going for another 100 years.  Its value has grown with time and it is debt free.  It is a corporation now, former partners have stock in proportion to their inheritance.   Now with time, we have more and more stockholders.  It is only natural, some give shares to their children, some inherit their shares from their parents.  It is a measure of how our relative family has grown since 1856 when Brunswick was purchased by Jacob Haight Morrison.  True, Angeles is only a slice of Brunswick, but it can trace its roots back to Brunswick.  Some time before the year 1900 Walter Christian Morrison took his inheritance from Brunswick to start Angeles Plantation.

So that is where we are today.  Still going, still planting, still farming and the family is ever growing.