Reunion celebrates family connections, history

By Liz McMahan
Phoenix Staff Writer

July 03, 2009 11:45 pm

— WAGONER – Mary Trueblood Cobb is planning a party this weekend and expects several hundred guests. They will be celebrating the 139th anniversary of the arrival of her ancestors in Wagoner.
Joseph Benson Cobb and Evelyn Clingan Cobb came from Tennessee to settle east of Wagoner in 1870. The house they completed 10 years later still stands but is no longer in the Cobb family.
Another Cobb landmark, the S.S. Cobb Building that now serves as the American Bank in downtown Wagoner, also marks the family’s place in area history. It was built in 1895 by Cobb, who had established a pharmacy and served as postmaster for Wagoner.
Getting together a party of this size is no one-woman show, Trueblood said. She has help from her brother, cousins, aunts and several other family members, and planning started right after the last reunion, which was held two years ago.
This is Trueblood’s and her generation’s second time to handle the reunion. They have taken heed of the advice of the older generation and added a lot of technology to their organizational process.
Her brother Jim Cobb and their cousin, Gary Allen of Chicago, talk of external hard drives, flash drives, spreadsheets and family trees when they get together. Allen produced the family newsletter announcing the reunion and mailed it and e-mailed it from Chicago.
Gary has been collecting family tree information and scanning pictures from everyone he can find to add as many branches as he can.
Technology not only reduces postage costs for the reunion operation, it allows more people to have more information, Allen said. For example, the reunion contact list is an Excel spreadsheet that can be e-mailed to everyone so they have all the addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and other information that he has.
Meanwhile, other family members have helped with planning the big Sunday afternoon meal, where everybody local brings a covered dish to go with the meat that is provided. It and all other events are open to family members and friends of the family, Trueblood said.
Trueblood’s duties include making sure the restaurant is ready to accommodate the dozens of guests expected for Saturday night’s dinner and taking reservations for that event.
And then there are the details, like pocket knives to be ordered. That is cousin Pug Cobb’s job. For the last several reunions he has ordered specially engraved Case pocket knives for the collectors who will attend.
Several family members will bring items for the Sunday afternoon silent auction that raises funds for the next gathering. A live auction used to achieve the same purpose, but it interfered with the family visiting and the silent auction is just as much fun, family members said.
And then, it’s the job of the older generation to bring the memories. There are lots of those, said Nettie Henson and Bettie Center, twins who were among 12 children of Ben and Nettie Cobb who were reared in the old home place.
They remember huge corncob fights held in the barn loft even though they were prohibited by her parents. They remember sliding down the banister in the house. And they remember having to do lots of chores.
“Everybody had a job, as soon as you got big enough to do anything,” Henson said.
Their dad built a stool so the girls could reach the kitchen sink to wash the dishes, and with 12 children, there were lots of them, Center said.
“We loved it when we had adult company because the women would get in there and wash the dishes for us,” she said.
Reach Liz McMahan at 684-2926 or lmcmahan@ muskogeephoenix.com.

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