August 23, 2016
Has it been a while since you got together with all of your brothers and sisters and their families? According to this 1866 newspaper article, the Cleveland family hadn’t gotten together for 31 years – not since “the wedding of the eldest daughter in 1835.”
But gather they did in Huntsburgh, Geauga County, Ohio, for their mother’s birthday on 24 September 1866 – which the newspaper tells us was her “eighty-first birth-day.”
All of Esther (Allen) Cleveland’s (1785- ) nine adult children were there, “the eldest being fifty-eight and the youngest thirty-five.” All attended except their “eldest [Oren Alexander Cleveland], an infant son, [who] died of scarlet fever” in Connecticut.
Esther and Oren Cleveland were married “in 1805… at Enfield, Conn., and resided in that State till 1839, when they removed to Geauga county, Ohio.”
One son, [James Chamberlain Cleveland, 1813-1886] who is a farmer up among the hills of Litchfield county, Conn., had not seen his mother for twenty-seven years.
If your family hasn’t gotten together for 31 years – like the Clevelands – there is still time. You bring the hot dogs and I’ll bring the potato salad – let’s make this happen.
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