A proud Indiana family has held an annual reunion every single year for the last 125 years, to honor their ancestors, share powerful stories, and teach their children where they came from.
Mary Katherine Beck Petric, 73, was 2 years old in 1952 when she attended her first Beck family reunion.
“It started as just a family celebration on the birthday of my great-grandmother,” Ms. Petric told The Epoch Times.
Ms. Petric’s grandmother Mary Jeanette Foglesong Beck was born in 1858.
“Her birthday is on July 1, and they decided, as a family, to have a celebration at the family home with all the kids that were away coming back,” Ms. Petric said.
The first celebration was held back in 1899. Later, Mary’s husband, George Beck, kept the annual family reunion going until his wife passed away in 1919. That year, the family decided that a different member would host the reunion each year in their homes to keep the tradition alive.
From having the gatherings at different homes, they then decided to move it to a bigger venue such as a park.
“It moved to Province Park in Franklin, Indiana, around 1925 or 1926, and that’s where we have been meeting every year since,” Ms. Petric said.
Today, a Beck family reunion begins with a prayer, home-cooked Indiana fare such as pies, chicken, and noodles, and sharing of family stories.
Additionally, the family also reads an article that was published in the Franklin, Indiana Eveningstar from 1927 about the descendants of [great-great-grandfather] Gottlieb Beck.
Ms. Petric notes that, currently, there aren’t as many activities as there were in past years.
“I know when this originated at the family home, the children performed, they sang, they did all these little things because there weren’t any media,” she said.
During her first reunion, she recalled that families around her were all having reunions. The park system would provide tables and chairs, and families would book a photographer to record the day for posterity.
“It was quite a common practice,” she said.
Ms. Petric missed several annual Beck family gatherings after her family moved away from the state, but she has tried to join in since she returned.
During the pandemic, she states that the numbers dwindled but hopes that it will grow in the years to come, for the sake of the children—her memories of past reunions have brought her so much joy.
“My memories are probably better of that era than it is today,” she said. “I have those family stories my father told that were never recorded and written down.
“Your heritage is quite remarkable, you know, all they’ve seen and done, so it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to preserve.”
Each year, Ms. Petric believes that the day continues to bring surprises. At one reunion, Ms. Petric recalled an attendee spotting a family resemblance at the gathering that she'd never once seen in family photos.
“[She] said, ‘I can’t believe it, you look just like my aunt.’ She had never met anyone with that particular shape of the chin. ... It was just nowhere in our pictures or genealogies,” Ms. Petric said. “She said, ‘Oh my gosh, now I know where we got that!’”
Ms. Petric’s relative, Victor Cole, supports her enthusiasm for the annual family reunion—which stepped into its 125th year on July 2, 2023.
Mr. Cole told The Epoch Times that their family meets yearly for five important reasons.
“First, to honor the past,” he said. “The reunion provides a valuable connection to our ancestry that teaches our children where they came from, who their ancestors were, what hardships they endured, and what they accomplished. Such history is revered in other cultures and countries, but too often cast aside in the United States.
“Second, it demonstrates to our children that family ties are important and establishes memories of relatives that will last a lifetime,” he said. “Third, our families have moved to distant parts of the country and seldom have contact with each other. The reunion is an opportunity to renew contact, or in the case of new family members, introduce them to the family and sow seeds of relationships beyond a once-a-year gathering.”
Mr. Cole’s fourth and fifth reasons are that the reunion “provides an impetus to study history,” and “provides the perfect venue to capture stories for posterity.”
Ms. Petric hopes that by staying connected, she and her loved ones can demonstrate how valuable it is to honor shared history, as she strongly believes that family is an “anchor.”
“It’s just a wonderful thing to remember where we came from, to thank those that came before us, and that we can always know that we’re all family in a world that is a little crazy right now. ... When you get older and you look back, it’s nice not to have regrets that, ‘Boy, I probably should have gotten to know that person a little better,’” she said, reflecting, “Once the time has gone, it’s gone.”
