I need to have your T shirts by JULY 1st!!!

Hi there,

Well people, the time has come...

I need to have your t-shirts by July 1st, that is TOMORROW! 

Please let me know if you are going to just buy them from the t-shirt shop or if you will buy them yourselves and then bring them to me.

Remember...

the printing is $5.00 and the t shirt is $4.00, so if you are buying the shirts from the shop, the price for everything is $9.00

You can reach me on my cell phone if you have any Questions...

Love you guys, Katy

Prices for Shirts

Hi everyone, it is me again... Katy, your favorite T-shirt queen!

I have some more info on the shirts for you.

The price to get the screens set up is $15.00 for the first one and then $10.00 for the second one (we will need 2, because we will need 2 different sizes, big for the adults and small for the little dudes, like Emma Jean the queen)

The price of the Printing is going to be $4.00 a shirt, that includes the front and the back! 

Then, if you are wanting to just buy the shirts from the t-shirt shop, they are $4.00 for good old 100% cotton.

Of course, if you provide your own shirt, you just pay for the screen set up and for the printing.

So, to keep it simple for all of you...

The price to get EACH SHIRT PRINTED IS $5.00

If you want to buy the shirt from the shop then EACH SHIRT, PLUS PRINTING IS $9.00

I know that this all seems a little boring and overly detailed, but I just want you to all feel like you know where all of the prices for the shirts are coming from.

DON'T FORGET, IF YOU ARE PROVIDING YOUR OWN SHIRTS, I HAVE TO HAVE THEM BY THE 1ST OF JULY! 

ALSO, I NEED THE MONEY FOR THE SHIRTS BY THE 7TH, THAT IS THE DAY THAT I WILL PICK THEM UP AND PAY FOR THEM! IT WOULD PROBABLY BE EASIER IF YOU JUST PAYED ME WHEN YOU BROUGHT ME YOUR SHIRTS ON THE 1st.

I can't wait to see how these shirts turn out, I think that they are going to be the best shirts yet, seeing how I really only have to compete with last years shirts! Hee hee

Love you all, let me know if you have any questions 

Call me!

T-Shirt Designs, Check it out

Hi there family and friends... just thought that I would let you all in on the design for the T-Shirts this year... these are just a few that I have been working on... the color is a little wierd because Photoshop and blogger colors don't mix well or something... Please let me know what you think and leave a comment if you have any ideas, Thanks

RSVP for motel by Sunday 1 June

Hey there Katy, you must be zoning in on my brainwaves.

I just sent out an email this morning asking for a head count of who wants one of the rooms I reserved at the Days Inn in Sheridan for Wed. (our travel day), Thurs., and Friday, July 9,10, &11. Because it is rodeo time and a weekend, they need 30 days notice to cancel, otherwise I get charged for the rooms. Look at their web site at http://daysinn.com and specify Sheridan Wyoming or go to www.sheridanwyoming.org for more stuff about Sheridan. I am sorry it is not rustic cabins, but there did not seem to be any available that were anywhere close or reasonably priced that would hold us all. I chose this one because it is near the flour mill on the south end of Sheridan, and near to Gram's old house. It will be easy to get to the cemetery from there too. There will be microwaves, frigs , a heated indoor pool and hot tub, free breakfast, cribs, a multi use room, free wi-fi, and parking for Josh's rig.

Also I need to know how many nights you will be there. There are two "triple" rooms with three Queen beds (one for Don's family and one for Becky's family); the rest are doubles with 2 queen beds, and when I call them back next week, I will put specific names on each room. Some rooms are connecting so let me know about your preferences.

There has been some discussion about Gram's estate paying for some of the cost, and this is what I decided - that each household that rooms together, her estate will pay for two nights (equivalent value) at this motel. Josh is taking his own trailer and I will give him the equivalent in cash to help put gas in his truck or whatever he wishes. That adds up to ($143 per night) or $286, which I will give to you in cash when you get there. Even though the triple rooms are more expensive, I will cover the cost for their two nights also. So the reservations are on Gram's credit card, but I expect you to pay for the room on your own when you check out.

I am waiting til you get there to hand you your cash, so that if you don't show up, I can still pay for your room. I also have rooms reserved at the Super 8, which is less expensive ($79-), but it is in the north end of town and has no frigs, microwave, and no pool.

Gram's memorial service will be at the Cox family plot in the Sheridan Cemetery at 10 AM on Thursday, July 10, 2008.

The next item to discuss should be what to do when we get there after Gram's service. Do we want a tour guide to plan things together or will it be every one for themselves - or make it up when we get there?

Love,
Your Auntie, your sister, your mom, your Grammie
Lois Ann

Sheridan... here we come!

Hey there Road Trippers... Katy here,

I just wanted to up date the Reunion Blog and let everyone know how excited I am about our trip to Wyoming this summer. I am already getting a new design ready for T-shirts... If any one has any ideas or thoughts on that... Please let me know. I think that the shirts last year were a big hit, I still wear mine!

I came up with the Title, "Return to Wyoming" and so I think that I will put that on the shirts with some kind of picture of a cowboy hat, Indian paintbrush, mountains, Bluebell, or something that relates to all of us in Sheridan again.

I hope that we can all use this blog as a way to communicate about this years trip.

Yahoo, this is going to be so fun!

Spring means... bring on the New!

Hello fellow family people... Katy here, just had some time and wanted to make a few changes to the blog, its spring, well soon enough... and thought that we needed a new look and some new pics and such. Hope that you don't mind.

Here are some topics for discusion about some family related things:

- Becky had mentioned in her blog that she thought that it would be cool to put together some kind of book of pictures of all of the fun memorable items that belonged to gram, along with a list of where all of the items are and who has them. I am with Becky on this one, that sounds like a groovy idea. What does everyone think about that? And, who wants to be in charge???

- I have had a few people ask about all of the pictures that were shown at Grams Memorial, Sue was the one who had the pictures and she sent them to me to put in a slide show... I have all of the pics and if any of you would like a copy of them just leave a comment or email me and Sue or I can send them to you.

- This summer, as most of you know, we are planning a trip to Sheridan for grams burial. I personaly think that we should take full advantage and turn this into the Family Reunion to end all Family Reunions, well... you know what I mean... just think, all of us back in sheridan, livin it up on main street... sounds like fun to me!

Here is what I think...
Wouldn't it be fun to find a big cabin or house to all stay together... or I think that Aunt Lois had said to try and find separate little cabins for each family that are all grouped together. Here is a little info on what I have found... You can check it here...http://www.vrbo.com/146294

Welcome to the Sheridan Cottages, a completely new and unique lodging alternative. You will note the distinct style of the each cottage when you walk through the front door.

Your own personal cottage is decorated with a combination of charm and elegance. All the comforts of home are in place for a relaxing, extended stay, including the kitchen. All cottages are equipped with high speed internet, land line telephone access, cable television, and a laundry facility is on site.

New to the town of Sheridan, these five cottages are tucked away in a quiet neighborhood with their own outdoor common space, off-street parking, and a view of the Big Horn Mountains you won't believe! Minutes away by car, bicycle, or your own foot power you'll find all that our historic western town has to offer!



Any thoughts, Ideas, comments...?

Well, that is all that I have to say about that... Please feel free to leave comments, or post something yourself.

Love ya, see ya!

Light, Like the Sun

by Sue

I wanted to share the article that Gram had in her "Just in Case" book about cremation. I really liked it. This article is by Frances Newton and appeared in the Reader's Digest in 1937.

Father was 87 when he died. And I, at 41, had never before seen death, knew nothing of funeral rites. My husband and I sometimes argued about "what one did" when death came. He believed in cremation. I refused even to think of such an end. It was bad enough to die without becoming a bonfire, I thought. And I liked the idea of returning to the earth and becoming part of nature.

We had come out from New York to visit Father on his birthday. He seemed more alert and active than he had for years. And then, just as we were leaving, he fell and broke his hip. The doctors told me frankly that recovery was unlikely. And they warned me that in any case I should "make all arrangements."

Fiercely, I set myself against death. I knew what the doctors meant, but I was still unwilling to face the issue. By the end of the second week, however, I knew that the time had come to make preparations. So, with heavy hearts, we started out to find a burial plot. All the country churchyards nearby were full or reserved for parishioners. Only the city cemeteries were left. We went to one of them.

It was a cold, wet mid-December day and, as we looked at plots, a feeling of utter horror swept through me. There, in that manufactured park with its ghoulish artificiality, with its interminable monuments to bad taste, wealth and social position, we were planning to place the body of a beautiful and dignified old man who had lived generously and loved beauty.

"Is there no place where he can be alone, without being crowded like this?" I asked. The young man who was piloting us about shook his head. "This is the most desirable burial ground in the city, and it is almost filled."

We passed open graves ready to receive the dead— mounds of rain-drenched earth wet and sodden on the smoke-begrimed snow. When the young man quoted price, my heart sand further. I hadn't realized that it was so costly to bury one's dead. The only plot I would consider cost $1700. Gently, the man reminded me that I was seeing the cemetery under the worst possible conditions, that it was beautiful when the trees were out, that many of Father's old friends and associates were lying there. But finally, noting my silence, he said, "If I had to do what you're doing today, I'd choose cremation. "Never," I said . Then I looked out at that dreadful panorama of soot-stained stones. "Tell me about it," I asked.

"I think it would be better if you went to our crematory," he said. You might find there what you miss here." He directed us to a friendly and unpretentious Gothic chapel. My husband explained to the verger in charge that we wanted to learn about cremation-about what actually happened. "Tell me everything," I said. "I can stand what I know. It's what I don't know that frightens me."

The old verger seemed to understand. In front of the high altar, in the tiny chancel, lay a catafalque of dark-gray stone. There were flowers, and a lovely rose window threw warm colors on the stone floor. "The casket is brought in and placed on the catafalque," explained the verger. "The pallbearers stand on either side and the usual service for the dead is read. At the words "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," the casket is sprinkled with ashes and with dust. I press this button, and the casket sinks a foot below the floor, leaving only the flowers showing. The priest gives the benediction, and the service is over."

"What happens when we go away?" I asked.

He took us into the receiving chamber, beneath the chancel. "When the congregation has left the church" the verger said, "a friend of the family accompanies me and the undertaker to this room. I press this lever and the catafalque bearing the casket is lowered into the retort. "What is the retort?"

We passed into another vaulted room, white like the other. In the center was a small brick structure, with square gilt doors. The verger opened these revealing an inner door. He raised it and we looked into a long, white tiled chamber. The verger explained how the casket was placed in the retort, the door electrically sealed for four hours. "Afterward the ashes are gathered and sealed in a container to be placed in a niche in the chapel or given to the relatives."

I was still not satisfied. "Does it burn?" I asked. "Like a bonfire?" The thought of flames touching someone I loved, charring his beauty, was insupportable.

The old man asked, "Have you ever looked into the sun? You know how bright and clear it is. That is what surrounds the body and consumes it. Light, like the sun."

Light, like the sun. A sense of triumph came over me. Sunlight over Father working in his garden. Sunlight on his white head as he sat on the terrace reading. The warmth of sunlight bringing life to growing things, falling benignly on the aging, "When his time comes, I shall bring him here."

But, as we drove away, my husband was not satisfied. "All your life you have wanted burial. I may have over-influenced you. Tomorrow I want you to go to some friend of your father, someone nearer to his own generation, and tell him of your decision."

"But you still feel the same, don't you?" I asked.

"More strongly than ever. Burial in modern urban surroundings is even more barbarous than I had realized. And to me there is something monstrous about spending a couple of thousand dollars on a plot of ground and a stone when the same amount would provide a living memorial to your father."

"Why not take the difference between the cost of cremation and the expense of burial and establish a scholarship - or some sort of revolving loan fund - at his old university? Your father always believed in youth, has served youth all his life. Why not create a memorial that will be a living influence among those he always tried to help?"

More than anything I had heard, this last suggestion seemed to alleviate the pain the afternoon had brought. I went to the provost of Father's university, a man kindly and sympathetic, but well aware of the world he was living in.

"To me there is no question," he said. "Burial is part of an outworn social order. In building highways, it is often necessary to cleave through some little country cemetery, leaving a few forlorn stones on one side of the road and a few on the other. Or workmen, when excavating, disturb a skull, a handful of bones, someone's dearly beloved of 70 or 100 years ago. To me that is real desecration. And yet the dead cannot hold back progress. Perhaps eventually it will no longer be possible to be buried. Cremation may become obligatory. And think what all this real estate and stone masonry would mean, translated into scholarships. We could then take care of the brilliant youngsters who have little money. The dead, then, would truly enrich the soil."

Father died a week later. I sat beside him for a little while. My plans were made. I felt no grief--rather, a strange sense of elation, a feeling that all was well with all of us.

The following day, they carried him down to the university chapel. There, in a glory of sunlight and flowers, with his old friends around him, the Episcopal service for the dead was read.

On the drive to the crematory, we passed the cemetery with its soot-stained stones and snow, its uncovered ugly clay where the earth had been freshly broken, and I had a great singing thankfulness that we were not to lay him there. Inside the little chapel, sunset light gleaming through the windows fell on the casket covered with yellow roses, daffodils and iris. Warmth and color, Light and beauty.

"And so we commit his body. . ."

The casket sank out of sight, but in the aperture there were flowers, vivid, gay and strong.

And so we left him. Not for me the agony of knowing that his frail body lay in the cold earth. All I knew on the empty journey home was that around the gentle, kindly old man there was light, like the sun.

Father's memorial does not lie in a mound of earth and a stone. To me, he has not died. For I know the fruits of his labors are being used to help students, such as he was once himself. To these unknown students he is bringing light, like the sun.

As the trend continues, the cemeteries of the future may become green and open parks, with appropriate buildings harboring inscriptions about each person whose ashes are sheltered within. Thus, the character of our cemeteries would change from places of death to places of life.

Those of us with deceased loved ones know that they will be with us always—their memories aren't locked in the graveyards where they are buried. For me, my father lives on in the straight furrows of the Kansas fields he plowed. My mother still lives in her remembered laughter.

The soul is not anchored to a tombstone or a tiny plot of ground. Let us seek the ways to honor our dead not because they died, but because they lived.

It happened on the Tongue River

by Elizabeth

In 1969, Gram went to work at the Bank of Commerce in Sheridan. She was the first teller in the line, probably because she could chat and count money at the same time. Next to her in the teller line was Mary Zingg. Her husband, Herb, was the local brand inspector and he traveled all over the county to the local ranches. They lived north of town on the Tongue River.

One day Herb came in the bank and told my Mom he had gotten her a gift and had put it in her car in the parking lot. He never mentioned what the prize was. At the end of the day mother went out to the station wagon and found a large river turtle in the back of the car. My mom drove it to the ranch that afternoon and showed it to Granddad. He promptly stuck the turtle in the horse tank out by the front gate probably thinking the turtle needed a drink after being in the car for a long period. He also put a board in the water for the turtle to sit on when the sun came out. The old turtle lived there for years. He never bothered the horses. He would sit quietly on his board until the mares and colts showed up to drink and then he would slowly slide off into the depths of the cool water. He survived through the winters and would show up again in the spring.

At some point, the horse tank overflowed from being over filled and the old turtle made his get-away. He headed down to tiny Squirrel Creek which flowed through the ranch. From there he could have easily made his way home to the Tongue River. I can imagine the tale of adventure he had to tell the other river turtles. Considering the age of turtles, he may still be telling this story.

90 year birthday

I just found this email from from Gram, sent 22 Nov ember 2004, just after her party...

It was such a wonderful party thank all of you so much the food was delicious and such a nice variety and a beautiful cake Sue my Memory book is a real Treasure so I was so happy so many from my Church came and the Twins and IMaJean, some occasions I had forgotten about.

Its wonderful to be so old and So Loved

Gram

All about Gram

Hi, this is Sue. I just posted a little tribute to Gram on my blog. Click here to read it. Hopefully you've all read the email about contributing to this blog, either by posting something of your own or commenting on other people's stuff. I think this will be a great place for us to remember Gram together.


Man, I'm going to miss her!