Sixty-five years ago one of the favorite things our mother would say to us was, “We’re going to Titonka (or to Wellsburg) Sunday.” Those were the Iowa communities where our grandparents lived.

A trip to Wellsburg meant spending a Sunday with our maternal cousins and a trip to Titonka meant a day with our paternal cousins.

Cousins played a big role in the lives of my siblings and me and we had a lot of them. Our mother was one of 12 children and our father one of six. In total we had 55 first cousins and dozens of second cousins, some of whom were nearly as close to us as first cousins.

These days our mother’s family gets together every July, but our father’s family does not as regularly. So you can understand my enthusiasm for a Huisman Cousins Reunion scheduled for earlier this month. It had been some 30 years since I had seen some of these cousins with whom we had spent many good times at our grandparents’ home.

First cousins came to the reunion from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas and all over Iowa.

We met for lunch at 1 p.m. and then migrated to a church fellowship hall near the family’s ancestral hometown in central Iowa. Our gatherings used to be picnic potlucks, but this time everyone enjoyed a restaurant pizza buffet. Times, they are a changing.

The oldest of our first cousins celebrated his 85th birthday last month and he was feted at our reunion. The youngest cousin is 57 and her attendance reminded us older cousins that even the baby cousin is now a middle-ager.

The first thing I noticed was how many of us cousins are walking with the assistance of a cane or rollator walker. Though our walking may be a little slower, our minds are sharp enough to remember many good times.

Cousins Kenny, Loren and I were the Three Musketeers when we got together at our grandparents’ home years ago. As younger kids we explored Grandpa’s farm and as teenagers we jumped into one of the automobiles and talked about all the things that concern teenage boys. Usually, that was girls.

I was the youngest of the trio and learned a lot.

Out of the nearly two dozen Huisman cousins, we have lost only two, but six of us cousins have lost spouses. Four of us have remarried and our new mates were in attendance too. As the afternoon ended I asked one of the new wives if after witnessing the crazy stories shared that day she was still happy to have married into the family. She assured me she was.

One of the joyful observations from the reunion is that all the cousins, now obviously much older than when we spent time at our grandparents’ home, still have the personalities of their youth.

What our stoic grandmother would have called “smart aleck” still abounded. As family stories of mischief and youthful adventures were shared, responses from the crowd were quick and witty.

One cousin talked about the time he — newly licensed to drive — and my brothers drove to Minnesota for a root beer. Titonka was only 20 miles from the Minnesota border, but for my brothers from central Iowa it was a memorable trip.

Another cousin remembered being tricked into getting shocked by an electric fence. Still another recalled the time one of the cousins peed on an electric fence. The victim did not want to discuss the incident.

Many of us remembered our grandmother’s upright Victrola crank-powered phonograph and the quarter-inch-thick records we played on it. We even remembered some of the songs on those old records.

Many of the stories recalled our aunts and uncles, all of whom have passed on. The cousin who coordinated the reunion had printed a 5-by-7 photograph of the six uncles and aunts from the late 1980s. She gave each of us a framed copy of the photo. I have studied that photo several times since returning home and it becomes more precious each time.

American poet Marion C. Garretty once said, “A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.” That was proven again at our Cousins Reunion.

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2025 by Huisman Communications.