THE BEGINNING OF THE HOWARD FAMILY REUNION
This photo is from the Howard Family Reunion in Macon, GA, 1981. The group of Detroit family members on the left
are wearing T-shirts from the first reunion in 1980, also held in Macon, the ancestral home.
PLANNING THE FIRST REUNION
It wasn’t easy to find time to visit the family. That’s what Howard family members in Detroit were finding out in the late 1970s.
Everyone seemed to be busy working or running around. They just couldn’t seem to squeeze another minute out of the day.
Realizing that they had to do something about it, family members decided to start getting together on New Year’s Day, meeting first at Gussie Clark’s house, bringing potluck dinners. Everyone exchanged gifts.
As the gatherings got larger and family members began to invite friends, the homes became congested. So, they rented halls. The group had swelled to up to 150 people.
They later decided that this gathering should be expanded to include family members from other parts of the country – and thus the family reunion was started.
“We thought about it and said we should do it,” recalled Gussie, daughter of Guss Howard.
She wrote Rebecca Spivey, her cousin in Cincinnati, OH, daughter of Alonzo Howard. She and Rebecca had kept in touch. Rebecca agreed that it was a good idea.
Rebecca got the family in Macon involved. That part of the family had always gotten together for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and Fourth of July and Labor Day celebrations. They called each other; they visited each other. They kept in touch with the family members in Cincinnati, but they did not know much about the family in Detroit, except for “Sis,” Alonzo’s oldest sister Elizabeth who would come from “up the country” to Macon in the 1960s.
John Goolsby, Alonzo’s grandson, spearheaded the reunion effort in Macon.
Before the reunion, said Gussie, she had had contact with Sadie Edwards, Irene McClendon’s daughter, in Macon but not with any other members of the family. In fact, she had not been to Georgia since leaving the state with her family as a young child in the 1920s.
She was born in Savannah, GA. Her father Guss moved to Detroit after learning that the Ford Motor Co. was encouraging men to come North to work in its plants and send for their families later. He returned for his wife Charleana and his two young children.
She said the first reunion was a lot of hard work, but the subsequent ones have gotten easier.
“Each time we have one, it gets better and better,” she said. “I feel like it will continue.”
T-shirts were produced each year of the reunion. The T-shirt on the right commemorates the 20th anniversary – 1980-2000. Bertha Durrett of Detroit (Guss’ daughter), who died in 2020, always proudly noted that she had each one of the T-shirts.
MACON, GA – 1980
The family’s first reunion was a simple affair. We were not sure what we were doing. About 50 to 75 people showed up – families from Macon and the surrounding area, Detroit, MI, and Cincinnati, OH.
The Friday-night dinner was held at the Monument Room at the Macon Coliseum and catered by Morrison cafeteria. All of us were a bit timid. We were face to face with people whom we had generally heard about but had never met or thought we’d ever meet.
“We really didn’t know how to organize a reunion then,” one family member said.
On Saturday, the family had a barbecue at Lake Tobesofkee park in Lizella, GA, a spot not far from where Alonzo had moved his family in the 1950s.
On Sunday, everyone went to Mount Zion Baptist Church, the family church, which was renamed Bibb Mount Zion in 1985. An afternoon dinner was held at S&S Cafeteria.
This was the beginning of the three-day format for future reunions.
“That was the best year,” said John Goolsby, the Macon organizer. “They were happy to meet each other. Some people had never met some of their relatives. It was a very exciting reunion.”
REUNION LOCATIONS
They were held in cities where family members lived, except where noted by asterick:
1980-1981 – Macon
1985 – Cincinnati, OH
1986 – Detroit, MI
1987 – Atlanta, GA
1988 – Philadelphia, PA
1989 – Macon, GA
1990 – Chicago, IL
1991 – New Orleans, LA*
1992 – Macon, GA
1993 – Washington, DC*
1994 – Detroit, MI
1995 – Cincinnati, OH
1996 – Myrtle Beach, SC*
1997 – Tampa, FL*
1998 – Atlanta, GA
1999 – Philadelphia, PA
2000 – Macon, GA
2005 – Macon, GA
2006 – Washington, DC*
2007 – Detroit, MI
2008??
2015 – Atlanta, GA
2016 – Memphis, TN*
2017 – New Orleans, LA*
WHERE WE LIVED
