Wehr Family marks century of reunions
MUDDY CREEK TWP — Ed Wehr, at 87, was the oldest member of the Wehr family to attend the 100th annual family reunion on Sunday, Aug. 10.
Before the family lined up for their potluck dinner, he took the mic to lead his family down memory lane.
“I’m going to leave you for just a second here to draw a picture,” he said.
More than 100 relatives gathered at Bear Run Campground to mark the centennial celebration of the event. The campground itself is owned by the family, but Wehr looked to transport attendees somewhere else.
“Now, I know most of you who have never seen the Wehr homestead, where grandma and granddad — my grandma and granddad — lived,” he said. “I think most of you probably have some idea where it was.”
Wehr talked the family through the homestead he remembered from his youth, including the layout of the home, property and many of the auxiliary buildings on the land.
He also told other stories, from the first reunion he can remember from the ’40s, to his father having to drop out of fifth grade.
Then, he led the family in a quick prayer before dinner.
After dinner, the family took a wagon ride down to Porter’s Cove on the shore of Lake Arthur at Moraine State Park. Throughout the day, activities and face painting were offered to children and a 50-50 raffle was held.
David Santillo, one of the attendees, is not a Wehr by blood but started coming to the reunions when he married into the family. Over 30 years of marriage, however, he’s grown to love much of his wife’s family too.
“It’s fun and nice and, at this point, I recognize most of the people even if I don’t remember all the names,” Santillo said jokingly.
He said they used to go to the reunion for the other side of her family, but it fell apart after the organizers grew older and nobody wanted to step up.
“(Family reunions) are hard to do,” Santillo said. “It’s a lot of organizing people.”
The event seems to keep growing each year, as new family members are born and marry in.
Ailene Hudack, whose maiden name is Wehr, said she actually stumbled across the Wehr family reunion when staying at Bear Run.
“The year that me and my husband got married, we came up here. I had put this under my maiden name, which was Wehr,” Hudack said. “Whenever I went to say that we were checking out, I don’t know who it was, but they asked if we were here for the reunion.”
