Stark Reunion

Stark Family:  The photo on the left was taken at a reunion many years ago.  I put it in to show the only part of the family with the Stark name.  Paul and a son who died as an infant were the only sons born to Celia and William Stark. There were seven daughters, one of whom died at the age of 2.  Paul and Mae Stark had one son, Bob.  Bob and Diane had one son, Dale, and three daughters. So, many of the descendants have a different last name and those with the Stark name are quite out numbered.  Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of Dale and Marlys and Tammy Stark at this recent gathering, so these photos are low resolution photos lifted from facebook.

Old photo of some of the Stark Family taken at Manhattan conv. many years ago

These were some of our dear and oldest relatives at the gathering:  My dear Uncle Clarence, Montie (shortened from Montana Magee) Brazill , and Bob Brazill.  My Mother-in-law (Florence) once told me once about meeting Montana Magee in California many years ago.  She was amazed when I told her that she was my Dad's cousin.  Apparently two Magee girls married into the Brazill family.  Bob's wife Margaret, is deceased.

I was really glad for a the Stark Family cook book that was put together a few years ago as it is was an easy place to look up information about the Stark Family.  So if you are wondering who is related to who and how, this will answer a few of your questions.  Mom made sure that each of her children had a copy of it by purchasing enough of them to give to us all.  Our Stephens family was well represented at this reunion, as cousin Brenda and sister Dicie hosted the gathering this year.  Dicie even made Meatballs Baked in Barbecue Sauce for the reunion....a recipe that Mom had submitted for the cookbook. I am feeling guilty again for not submitting any recipes to the book, as I now have fresh appreciation that I have a copy of it, not only for the recipes, but for the link to my family history on my Dad's side.

Till next time,

Linda

Summer Photo Dump

I've been enjoying The Friday photo dump from Alison, and just thought maybe I'd put together a summer photo dump of shots I like, but just didn't make a blog post:  1. rock garden I loved with wild flowers  2. Front porch that I would love to relax on (both from Parade of Homes, Bozeman) 3. Brad, Amy and Ollie  4. Dean and Mary Holskey's 50th Anniv. celebration. 5.  some of my petunias  6. flock of birds visiting my front yard  7. Start of a chair recovery project  8. more birds and roses in my front yard  9. sunset....often I would drive home after harvest dinner and marvel at the beautiful skies  10.  harvest moon   11 and 12.  more evening skies  13.  Eva, little shopper extraordinaire  14.  old wheel in my rock garden   15.  Anniv. flowers from my sisiter  16.  puffy clouds  (unfortunately, very few of the clouds recently have brought precipitation, which we are all hoping for now)

A time to play

Till next time,

Linda

Harvest 2012 in our rear view mirror

The insanely long hours are behind us and the crops are in the bin.

A few of the memories from this busy time are sweet and I want to remember them.  Like this evening when our two grandsons and their parents were here to help for the weekend.  I love this picture of Ollie and Roger silhouetted against the setting sun.

Ollie is enjoying dessert.....

But not nearly as much as he enjoyed sitting in the drivers seat!

Even little Brandon enjoyed dinner out on the tailgate.

Dining in style.....

For the most part, the crew took a break at supper time and came to the house to eat.  But this night, we were cutting quite a few miles from the house, so I packed up supper to take to the field.  I tried to remember everything I needed to take, but guess what??  Even though I had set paper plates and cups out on the counter to pack, they didn't get put in the box and so, here we were a half hours drive from the house, and we didn't have cups and plates to eat our supper on!!  Never fear, we didn't starve :-)  There were enough lids to go around to use as "plates" and some empty water and gaterade bottles with the tops cut off made dandy drinking glasses :-))

Tom and Jo's anniversary was the day we moved our combines home.  So they left the girls with Roger and I the next day and had a well deserved break with an afternoon and evening 'on the town'.

Our anniversary was three days later and fell on Sunday.  Tom and Joellyn fixed a scrumptious dinner for us and Uncle Don and Aunt Ellen and Kathy Bond.  Roger and I then got to go to the gospel mtg. in Great Falls, so it was a lovely way to spend our anniversary.  We had our big celebration a few month early when all our family traveled to Hawaii

Till next time,

Linda