The Ellis clan, from the Fritz and Helen branch of the tree, are having a reunion in Lignite this weekend. Any and all are invited to come and visit with those you’re on speaking terms with, collect on a debt, or maybe settle an old score. Whatever brings you our way, know that most of you will be greeted with wide smiles and a healthy dose of sarcasm. Most of you.

It’s been five years since our last Ellis family gathering. A seemingly sufficient time for most wounds to heal and septic systems to be plunged and purged. We shall see.

Grandpa Fritz and Grandma Helen spent the first few years of their marriage moving their ever expanding family here and there. Going where the work was, moving on when it wasn’t, and eventually settling for good in Lignite.

We lost Grandpa back in 1987, but I can still walk by their old flat roofed house and see him sitting on the front step having a cigarette and cup of coffee. A good man, a nice man, gone, but not forgotten. Although he may have preferred the solitude of his woodshop over a large gathering, I’m sure he would have lent his ready smile and sweet chuckle to the mix if he were still here.

Grandma Helen stills calls Lignite home (when she’s not dabbing bingo cards), as do three of her nine children, four with Julie, who was taken from the clan in 1977, and lies next to Grandpa in St. Mary’s Cemetery just outside of town. My dad, his sisters, and his brothers are good people, and although I don’t remember Julie, as I was only four when she was killed, I assume she was much the same.

I have always been interested in the continuous ripple and growth of family through time, and often wonder what the people looking back at me from those old black and white photos were like. What is the story behind each of the names stretching back through the ages? What happened between the day they were born and the day they died? What were their dreams and aspirations? Many times, we can’t even answer those questions for those we’ve shared our allotted time with.

So it goes with us, so it probably went for those who came before, but a family reunion may offer a bit of mitigation in the matter, and provide us with a story to go with the face and the name. Sometimes the story may not be all that flattering, but flattering or not, a story is much more interesting than a list of dates.

The Ellis family story came from Wales to the United States with Thomas Ellis in 1707 when Thomas was 24 years old. Thomas, and his wife Jane Hughes, were of the Quaker faith, and he was said to come from ancient nobility in Wales, and was the most prominent Quaker in Pennsylvania in his time. A real hoity-toity one he was. Thomas and Jane were apparently buddies with Daniel Boone’s family and Abe Lincoln’s great-grandfather, Mordecai Lincoln.

“Coonskin Caps and Quakers” was the name of their band. Jane played tin whistle, Thomas was on kazoo, the Boone’s yodeled, and Mordecai twanged the mouth harp…honestly. Maybe, maybe not, but I can honestly say that I am looking forward to getting together with my clan, a noble clan at that. Swing by for some laughs and a swig of Red Eye.