65th Congerville Reunion

Saturday, graduates or attendees, spouses or siblings, of Congerville High School will hold their 65th annual reunion. 32 have sent their checks in to date. Rather remarkable when you consider that Congerville had only a three year high school that closed as a high school in 1946. Mary (Lantz) Sharp, who tried hard to teach me; I wasn't much of a student, and most everybody else who will be in attendance, will be with us again. Last year, her sister Dorothy (Lantz) Cross (and son Steve); Dorothy and her husband, also taught at Congerville High, stopped by en route to another engagement.

I will not hazard a guess at Mary and Dorothy's ages but they were still pretty good looking and still vivacious.

I continue as organizer by default after some wanted to close it down three years ago (some misunderstood and thought we wanted to close it but a majority of the attendees asked that we keep it going.)

Each year Dave Greer, whose wife Lois (Zook) was in the next to last graduating class, continues to send invitations to all of those we can still locate.

My three sisters will attend; Loretta Kauffman Funk, along with my next oldest sister Pauline Hermann, my now youngest sister Viola and husband Herb Kauffman, his son Larry and his lovely wife Marilyn and two friends of Herb and Vi’s, who will sing with Herb; (Herb flew 26 missions over Europe in WW2) and provide the entertainment. Maybe Herb will also tell some jokes as he can almost put Royce Elliott to shame.

Also attending will be Roy and Pearl Schrock, C.D. and Eva Zook, Edie and Mary (Knapp) Steffen, Harvey Schieber, Clara (Miller) Kemp, Joy Stark and perhaps her sister, daughters of Ruth Kelley, Kenneth and Helen (McLaughlin) Miller; Ken was once purchasing agent for my company, Loren and Joan Knapp, recently of Tucson, AZ., Roland and Marjorie Hoffman (Zook), Esther (Schieber) Troike, School Scribe Russell and Laura Oyer and my wife Claire and I.

All of these have continued to have close connections to Congerville and the area.

My sister Dorothy, who was part of the program last year, was taken from us in January. Byron Gresham who attended last year with his wife Norma, has also passed on.

The joy of reunions is seeing and visiting with old acquaintances and friends. The sorrow is with those too ill to attend or have left us mortals with their memories.

This article is posted on my web site http://widmer-peoria-watch.blogspot.com so you may look me up and post any additions, errors, additions and corrections in the comment section of my blog site.

See you soon.