Homecoming

I try each year to avoid all the television commercials and talk of Mother’s Day. I treat the day as if it were just an ordinary Sunday. Twenty-five years have passed since I was able to share the day with my mother, Joan. Father’s Day is a different animal. My dad, Carl, is still here at age 88, which is a blessing I count each day. Father’s Day has always been doubly special in Dad’s family. Every year since 1955 (with only two exceptions of which I am aware) the Cartner Reunion has been held in Harmony, North Carolina on Father’s Day. In 1970, the reunion was cancelled because my grandfather died of a head injury on the eve of Father’s Day following a fall from a load of hay as he worked on the family farm. He was 63 years old. The only other time the date was changed was a one-year experiment when the reunion was moved one week away from the holiday because some folks said they could not attend the reunions because they had their spouse’s dad to go see on that day. Those same folks did not attend with the date moved, so it was decided that the reunion would remain on Father’s Day in perpetuity.

I missed the reunion the year I got married in 1985 one day before Father’s Day and I have missed it a few times when we were out-of-state on vacation celebrating anniversaries of that day; but if I am in town, I am there. Dad’s branch of the family included ten kids who produced twenty grandchildren. We were only one branch of the family tree. My grandfather was one of eight children. Those eight siblings produced fifty-one offspring between them! When I was a child in the 1970s, it wasn’t uncommon for there to be more than a hundred cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents at the reunion. We were a loud bunch filling the V-Point Community Center in Harmony, NC until Clarksbury United Methodist Church built a new Fellowship Hall and the reunion was moved there to accommodate the growing family.

Most of the Cartners were/are excellent cooks. At Reunions Past eight-foot-long folding tables groaned under the weight of my Grandma Cartner’s famous chicken pie, aunt Ann’s green rice, aunt Alice’s country-style steak made from venison, my mama’s fried chicken, and dozens of casseroles, home grown vegetables, heaping plates of biscuits, and pecan pies, applesauce cakes, persimmon pudding, and aunt Alene’s yummy strawberry cake. We all came hungry and left having committed the sin of gluttony.

The Cartners’ presence has always been my happy place. Whether it was Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or just a random Sunday after church, I adored being surrounded by my cousins, aunts, uncles and Grandma Cartner. (Since I was only five when Grandpa Cartner died, I only have fond memories of the silver dollars he would slip each grandchild on their birthday, his overall-clad presence in “his chair”, and the Juicy Fruit Gum we pilfered from his bib pocket as we vied for a place on his lap or the arm of his chair.) Gatherings at “Grandma’s house” were highly anticipated.

The Cartner Reunion was that … on steroids. Reunions were always held after church, so there was a period of gathering when those of us who did not attend Clarksbury United Methodist Church were commuting from other churches. The hall would slowly fill up with Cartners and in-laws and the noise level could get deafening. About one o’clock Uncle Andy or another of the Cartners with a big voice would whistle or shout everyone down to gain quiet. All of the years I can remember my Grandma Cartner was the de facto secretary of the family. Reunions started with a reading of the minutes of the last reunion that she meticulously kept track of, then she would move on to announce any births, deaths, or marriages that had taken place since we last gathered. When I was a child, these announcements seemed to be never ending. I was starving and wanted to get at all that wonderful smelling food spread behind her podium. A prayer of Thanksgiving for the family, fellowship, and food, shared by one of the uncles, followed her presentation. Then it was finally time to eat!!

The hour or so that followed was a pandemonium of voices greeting, mouths chewing, utensils clanking. As the long line snaked past the laden tables, filling paper plates with double their capacity, folks ate in shifts at the tables arranged in long lines along the length of the fellowship hall.

The Reunion was where we caught up with Dad’s first cousins, aunts, and uncles who we might not see again until the next reunion. One cousin, still fondly called Peewee at age 78, still comes every year from far away Suwanee, Georgia, but when I was a child, we were the long distance cousins, coming from Huntersville (near Charlotte). As we made the hour long trip there was a point we reached on Old Mocksville Road that we considered the boundary of “Cartnerville”. Nearly every house, barn, dairy cow, and acre for about a mile belonged to one of us Cartners. We would make the left off Old Mocksville Road onto Cartner Road (yes, that is really its name). Another right and a short distance took us by Jones’ Grocery Store which was run by my Grandma Cartner’s best friend, Virginia Gaither Jones and her husband Sam and was the source of a thousand memories for many generations of Cartners. A left onto Hwy. 901 brought us to Clarksbury United Methodist Church, where the choir and congregation was inundated with Cartners. 

At some point during the day many of us would slip out the back door of the fellowship hall to walk among the dozens of tombstones bearing the names of lost Cartners and other kin. Founded in 1832, the church and cemetery is filled with Cartner history. (The church even has ties to the other side of my family, the Houpes. My grandfather, Boston Von Houpe, Sr. created and manufactured the stained glass windows in his studio at A&H Art & Stained Glass.) Before we began to disperse, heading home for the naps our full stomachs were inducing, the hat was passed to collect money to keep flowers on the various graves of our ancestors.

Our family get togethers at Grandma’s house ended with her death July 5th, 1998. For so many years our branch of the family in particular was blessed, though. We had all ten of Dad’s siblings until we lost aunt Nancy at age 80 in 2013. We lost uncle Johnny at age 83 in 2019. We lost aunt Mildred at age 95 on December 9, 2023 and aunt Alice (Gigger) at 78, just four days later on December 13th, 2023.

In recent years, our crowd at the reunions has dwindled. This year I counted 32 attendees. Many of the regulars missing were from my Uncle Clint’s family. Shortly before the reunion this year Hospice was called in for Uncle Clint. His four children, six grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren were celebrating Father’s Day at Uncle Clint’s home since he was unable to travel. His wife, my Aunt Beverly, said she believes this year to be the only time Uncle Clint has missed a reunion in his 86 years.

Also missing were many of Dad’s first cousins who have been lost to Alzheimer’s, heart attacks, cancer, and old age. Once they were gone, most of their kids quit attending the yearly reunions. I suppose they have started new traditions with their children and grandchildren. 

Time moves on and traditions are lost. Pivotal folks like my Grandma Cartner, who was certainly the glue that held our branch of the family together after the loss of my Grandpa Cartner, are gone. Without her magnetic pull, the Cartner clan has drifted apart. It’s not that we love each other less. Life just moves on. Unlike my childhood years, the houses in “Cartnerville” are no longer filled with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Thanks to one of my cousins buying many of the farms and houses, the properties are still in the Cartner name, they are just rentals now instead of Uncle Johnny’s and Aunt Tommy’s house, Uncle Andy and Aunt LuCree’s house, Grandma Cartner’s house and Great Uncle Boo’s house.

I am so grateful for the many years and memories we Cartners share. Harmony will always hold a very special place in my heart. As long as there are Cartners gathering on Father’s Day and I am able to, I will be there, honoring and remembering those we have lost and holding on to those we are still fortunate enough to share such a special family with. #Blessed