Family reunions unite local families
The Delfine family of Canonsburg has celebrated family reunions for more than 100 years, drawing as many as 200 relatives.
The Balsama family of Canonsburg held their first family reunion in several years in October at White Eagles in Canonsburg. More than 100 family members attended.
Margaret Frazier Read, who started the Read family reunions with her husband in the 1960s.
The Read family at a get-together at the home of Rebecca Simpson’s mother.
The Read family reunions began in the 1940s. Pictured are 16 Read cousins, along with parents and grandparents, sometime during the 1950s.
If it’s the second Sunday in July, members of the Delfine family likely are gathered at American Legion Post 175 in Washington.
Each year, the relatives come together to celebrate their roots at a family reunion that dates back to 1917.
What started as a small family gathering has grown into an annual event that draws as many as 200 Delfine relatives of all ages and from all over the country back to their Canonsburg roots to swap stories, share food and play games.
“If everybody shows up, it’s a pretty big affair,” said Bobby Dellorso, who has been attending the Delfine reunion for as long as he can remember. “It warms my heart. It’s so nice that the tradition continues. We see each other at funerals and weddings, but this is the day we sit down together and talk together and catch up with what’s going on in our lives.”
Over the decades, the Delfine family gathering has established traditions.
The reunion has a different theme every year and the family dresses accordingly – they’ve donned Hawaiiian shirts, Christmas shirts and, last year, tie-dyed shirts.
The get-together always includes excellent food, a three-legged race, a watermelon-eating contest, a bocce tournament and a baseball game played with a “baseball” fashioned from socks.
Dellorso’s cousin, Brandon Iskey, publishes and distributes a family newsletter at the reunion.
“It’s a special day,” said Dellorso. “We have a good family. A real good family.”
Rebecca Simpson of Washington convenes annually with her cousins and their families at Tower Restaurant in Washington on the Saturday following Thanksgiving for a Read family reunion.
“I just thought everybody had family reunions,” said Simpson, laughing. “I know ours was going on before I was born, and I’m 70.”
Simpson’s grandparents, Charles and Mildred Frazier Read, organized the earliest reunions, and Mildred continued the tradition after her husband died in 1962.
Family was important to Mildred Read, Simpson said. Her grandmother hosted a huge spaghetti dinner at her home every Saturday, and when Mildred’s 16 grandchildren were grown, she mailed shoeboxes filled with homemade cookies to their homes, wherever they lived.
The family reunions, held at different locations over the years, were must-attend events.
“When I was younger, there weren’t any excuses for not attending. You were not a no-show,” said Simpson.
In fact, Simpson believes her mother, Ruth, never forgave her for missing the family reunion in 1985. But what Simpson didn’t tell Ruth is that she had been involved in a serious car accident and underwent spinal surgery.
“My mother kept calling and asking me are you sure you can’t come home for the reunion,” recalled Simpson. “I didn’t want her to know how serious it was because I didn’t want to worry her.”
Simpson’s oldest brother, John Simpson, a retired chemist for PPG Paints, flew in from China, California, Michigan and Mexico in order to attend the annual get-togethers.
Simpson credits those reunions for helping to build a close-knit family.
“We were all close and we are still close because of that. We were raised to be that way,” said Simpson. “It was good for all the kids to get to know all of the cousins we wouldn’t have otherwise.”
According to Edith Wagner, editor of Reunions magazine, reunions help families connect with their roots and promote a sense of belonging.
“Everybody should stay in touch with their family. But people just don’t get together like they used to, when families would gather for Sunday dinner or Saturday night dinners,” said Wagner. “I think, unfortunately today, families fracture much easier. There are so many ways we can disagree with one another.”
Wagner said family reunions last anywhere from a day to a week long, and often get started when one passionate family member decides to organize a gathering.
That’s the case for the Balsama family of Canonsburg, who held a family reunion at the White Eagle in Canonsburg Oct. 20, for the first time in about a decade.
Lauren Broglia, who organized the get-together, said she was motivated to hold a reunion after she and a cousin, Sherry Balsama Lemasters, fulfilled the wish of their grandparents to return to Italy and locate the family of her grandmother’s oldest sister, Carmela Balsama Zagari.
“I’m very emotional about it because of our second cousin, whose name also is Carmela, being a part of it,” said Broglia. “Our family has always been close, but we hadn’t all met up in such a long time and we wanted to introduce Carmela back to the family.”
Broglia said the response to the reunion, which included a family recipe contest and food prepared by award-winning executive chef Giuseppi DiGristina of Bella Serra, was tremendous, with more than 100 family members from across the country attending.
For 87 consecutive years, the Corbly family in Greene County has held a reunion to celebrate the life of the Rev. John Corbly, a Revolutionary War soldier and early settler in Greene County who established over 30 Baptist churches in the region, and his descendants.
The reunion, held at John Corbly Memorial Baptist Church on the last Sunday in June, draws as many as 80 relatives, and prizes are awarded to the youngest and oldest attendees, and to the relative who travels the farthest. A whiskey cake – a nod to Corbly’s involvement in the Whiskey Rebellion – is auctioned off annually.
“The interesting thing is that there are a lot of new people who show up,” said Bill Miller, a descendant of Corbly. “We have a lot of regulars, but there are people who do genealogy and find out they’re descendants.”
Destination family reunions have become popular, with relatives rotating among different cities or selecting a favorite location to meet annually, Wagner said.
Ultimately, she noted, it doesn’t matter where a reunion is held. The point is to celebrate family.
That’s why Simpson is anticipating the Read reunion, which is less than three weeks away.
“We have no intention of stopping. It’s always fun when we get together,” said Simpson. “We don’t know how to not have them.”