Family Reunions


Growing up family reunions were something that I looked forward to every summer. We always have had a very close family and getting together at a family reunion was like hanging out with your absolute bestest friends that you haven’t seen for a whole year. We always had two reunions that we went to. The first was Grandma Golding’s brothers and sisters families, the Hamblin Reunion and the other was my mother’s family’s reunion the Golding Reunion. We would meet at various locations depending on who was putting the reunion on that year, but mostly we met at Avintaquin
Campgrounds just off of Highway 191 between Castle Gate and Duchesne. We always had quite a large group show up. My guess is that there’d often be 40 -60 of us. For us kids that things that we looked forward to the most were the games. We would have a softball game, horseshoes, and box hockey (we’d through horseshoes for hours and hours, often into the night). Sometimes someone would bring a barrel with a saddle on it and the barrel would be tethered by four ropes and tied to trees; we’d sit on the saddle while cousins would pull on the ropes trying to buck us off. There was always a huge potluck lunch followed by a cakewalk. In the evening we’d have a bonfire where we’d roast hot dogs and marshmallows. We loved sitting around the fire telling stories and singing songs. Every year we’d beg Uncle LaVell to sing his name song. Then Sunday morning we’d have a Priesthood meeting followed by a Fast and Testimony meeting. It was always sad to see the various families slowly begin to leave. Some I’d see again quite soon others I knew I wouldn’t see until next summer.