Dear Cousins,
I've talked with many of you about our upcoming June reunion of the extended Reiss Family. We do these mega-reunions every 25 years so please read the details below and plan to attend. Dates are Friday June 5 at 5:00 and Saturday June 6 at 11:00. Supper is at 6:00 on Friday and lunch is at 1:00 on Saturday. Cost per day is $10 for folks over 15, $5 for kids age 5 to 15, or $35 max per family. The formal program is at 3:00 on Saturday followed by a group photo at 4:00. We need headcounts for each day so we can prepare food and print nametags, so please RVSP as below with:
Names of adults over 15: ______________________________
Names of children 5 to 15: ______________________________
Names of youngsters under 5: ______________________________
These prices will not cover all our costs so if you live in the area and want to bring a salad, veggie, chips, cookies, dessert, soda, etc. as an extra assist, it will all be very much appreciated. You may also want to bring lawn chairs marked with your name since the Sportsmans Club has only 120 folding chairs indoors and half a dozen picnic tables outdoors.
More details appear below, some are repeats from the last flier and some are new:
1. Our reunion will be held about twelve miles south of Belleville , Illinois at the Smithton Sportsmans Club which is a 40-acre part of the Reiss Family Farm. It has been leased to the Sportsmans since 1951. They built three large lakes and a nice clubhouse which we will be using for the reunion, same venue as our last big reunion in 1984 which celebrated 150 years of the Reiss Family Farm. There are lots of trees and ample parking. Plan on good weather, comfortable and casual clothes, and lots of conversation.
2. Please make sure that your immediate family members who have their own homes are aware of this reunion and plan to attend. Have those family members respond with a headcount and names as well. Carpooling is more fun and environmentally friendly.
3. We will display 33 arrowheads found on the surface of the old Indian Mound at the northeast corner of the Reiss Family Farm. As you drive along Knab Road per the directions in Item 13 below, look about 100 yards to the right immediately after crossing the bridge. Feel free to park and walk to the area.
4. We will also display a Proclamation from the Illinois State Legislature co-signed by Senator Dale Risinger and Representative David Lietch which mentions the Reiss Family Farm and honors our long history. There are six “whereas-es” and one “therefore be it resolved.”
5. The reunion will officially celebrate 175 years of the Reiss Family Farm. Illinois State records show it was founded on April 30, 1834 by Adam Reiss who purchased his first 40-acre parcel for $1.25 per acre. That is where the homestead still stands. That date makes our farm the oldest lineally owned family farm in all of St. Clair County and about the 37th oldest such farm in the State of Illinois . The State offers formal recognition (certificate and sign) for Sesquicentennial Farms (150 years) so we have formally applied for that status. . . . . as an aside, in 1834 there were 24 States in the Union, Andrew Jackson was our 7th President, total US population was 15 million of which about 285,000 lived in Illinois, Chicago did not exist, and Abraham Lincoln was just elected to the Illinois House of Representatives.
6. We will have a check-in station for Friday and Saturday where pre-printed nametags will be available with color codes showing your Reiss branch -- John, Frank, Charles, Martin, or Kate Reiss Wittig. We'll also have a master address list and master family tree printout to make additions and corrections. In short, we want to create accurate and complete databases which will then be available on CDs and a website which is under construction. All that will be very helpful for our next mega-reunion in 2034 to celebrate the Reiss Farm bicentennial.
7. We have been unable to contact only one family in our tree, so maybe you can help. It's from the John Reiss branch and is Robert (1935) and Sheron (1940) Muehling and their four daughters Tracey Muehling Schmidt (1957), Debbie Muehling Knoth (1961), Cindy Muehling (1963), and Barbara Muehling (1965). So please let me know what you know.
8. Cousin Roya Reiss Singleton from Hollister , California will present her digitized family tree. We've been working on lots of updates for several years. Roya purchased a formal program, will make her presentation at the reunion, and then offer CD copies.
9. Cousin Ken Reiss from Houston , Texas will present digitized updates of old family photographs. He will also have a station at our reunion to make digital copies of old photos that you should bring to the reunion. It would be best if you could bring them without frames and with your return address sticker on the back side for security and maybe a list of names in the photos. Ken will photo your photos and then you can put them in your car. He will add those copies to his photo archive and then offer DVD copies.
10. Cousin Melissa McCloud from Bolingbrook , Illinois is developing the Reiss Family Website and will present her plans at the reunion. Various databases will be included like two layouts of the family tree, photo archive, farm history, farm layout, historic farm documents, St. Clair County tombstone summary, family history books, descendents grid, and recent photos of the Reiss and Basler ancestral homes in Germany and Switzerland .
11. We will also have several family history books available. First one is already available at www.authorhouse.com or 888 519 5121 and is called Quilter, Granger, Grandma, Matriarch. That book is the 1949 to 1954 diary of Katie Reiss who co-owned and lived on the Reiss Farm from 1911 until about 1984. Click in the "title, author" box at the top of that website and type in either that book title or my name, Stephen W. Reiss. The second book will be called It Takes A Matriarch and is 780 letters written between 1852 and 1888 to Margaret Basler Reiss, widow of farm founder Adam Reiss. Those letters were written by her siblings, her children, her grandchildren, and two friends and total over 410,000 words. The third book will be called Reiss Dairy and is the story of that dairy in Sikeston , Missouri which was founded by John Reiss, brother of family farm owner George Reiss. You see the Reiss Dairy occasionally on eBay where their highly collectable milk bottles with poems are offered.
12. You can "fly" to the Reiss Family Farm and to the Smithton Sportsmans Club via www.google.earth.com. Type " Floraville , Illinois " in the "fly to" box and hit enter. Drag the screen from right to left to thereby go about 0.7 miles east. “Drive” down the dirt farm lane rather than follow the curve to the left. That's the Reiss farmstead with two homes, large barn, several outbuildings, and a pond. Continue another 0.7 miles east cross country to three lakes and a clubhouse. That's the Smithton Sportsmans Club.
13. The Smithton Sportsmans Club is about 3.5 miles southwest of Smithton , Illinois . Go south from Smithton on State Highway 159, take the second right onto Knab Road , and follow it around several curves and across a bridge to eventually see the Sportsmans Club on your right. You can also get driving directions at www.mapquest.com. Type "Smithton Sportsmens Club" and " Smithton , Illinois " into the name and address boxes and click on "get map." The first two hits are what you want. Note they use Sportsmens and Sportsmans interchangeably, both with no apostrophe.
14. Hotels and motels are available in Belleville about 12 miles north of the Sportsmans and one in Waterloo about 5 miles west. Type "Smithton Illinois Hotels" into www.google.com and see what comes up. Click on one or two of interest for prices, address, website, phone number, etc. Several of us are staying at the Super 8 in Belleville which is reasonable and almost okay.
15. There will be self-guided tours possible of the Reiss Farm homestead. The older home built in 1889 by Frank and Anna Feder Reiss and the log barn build by Adam Reiss in 1834 will be open for tours. The newer home built in 1941 by George and Katie Luetzelschwab Reiss is rented to others. That log barn was temporarily used for Catholic church services in 1840 before St. Michael's Church was built a mile away in Paderborn . George Reiss was the last owner to actually farm his farm but he retired from that job in 1948 at age 75. He farmed only with horses, having never owned a tractor.
16. Adam Reiss and his remarried wife, Margaret Basler Reiss Ebert, are buried in St. Augustine Cemetery in nearby Hecker, Illinois . Get back on Illinois Highway 159 and go south about five miles to Hecker. Turn right or west in the middle of town and follow that county highway a mile west. There is a small sign at a right turn toward the cemetery a few yards off the highway. We will have American flags on their two graves. There are other family graves there which are mentioned on the St. Clair County grave and cemetery summary which is attached to this email and which will be available at the reunion.
17. Our reunion idea was contagious such that the Luetzelschwab clan will be reunion-ing on Sunday afternoon June 7 at the Henry Lang farm about five miles northwest of the Sportsmans. So if you descend from George and Katie Luetzelschwab Reiss or just like to talk, you're invited to a third consecutive day of fun and conversation. Some of the Luetzelschwab clan will be at the Reiss Reunion because Katie's "Luetzelschwab" nephew Lavern Lang farmed the Reiss Farm for nearly 55 years starting in 1953. Lavern and Lucille Lang, and their three "double L" children Lynette, Lana, and Leon all lived in the 1889 house.
Thanks very much. We look forward to hearing from you soon and to seeing you in June.
Steve and Diane Reiss
700 Savanna Court
Dunlap, Illinois 61525-9408
Home 309 243 7748
Steve’s cell 309 472 5266
Diane’s cell 309 256 8566
reiss_steve@yahoo.com
