Cousins By the Dozen
Written March 6, 1996
Yesterday, March 5, 1996, I attended the funeral of a younger cousin. I did not really know him but had seen him several times, the last time being when my husband was in the hospital. I stopped several times to see him as he was right across the hall.
It isn't unusual at all for me to not know some of my cousins, since at the death of both of my grandmothers, the obituary listed 41 surviving nieces and nephews. That makes a total of 82. However, since the 7 of us were counted twice, there'd be less.
My maiden name was Maaser, and since there were no boys in our family, some of our boy cousins had very little to do with us. It didn't matter if our name was Ruth, Dorothy, Esther, Leona, Martha, Norma, or Mildred, we were usually just known to them as "one of the Maaser girls".
I had expected to see this cousin once more before he was buried, but he had chosen to be cremated. However, I did get a chance to visit with the rest of the family and met his wife and children. It is true that the only time we see some of our relatives is at weddings and funerals.
Some of my cousins live in Milwaukee. They belonged to an uncle we often referred to as our "stealing" uncle. They used to live in Merrill, and when he lost his job, we heard that he would go out and steal to feed his large family. Our mother used to say, "Hunger bricht izen", which translated means "hunger breaks iron". Mother never thought too badly of him, feeling that many parents would have done the same thing in similar circumstances. There was no welfare or Salvation Army in those days. Anyway, the old saying is still true, "You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your relatives."
My mother's maiden name was Goetsch, and there are many Goetsch's in this area. All of them are related some way or other. The Town of Maine where she was born is full of them.
In 1980, our mother's side of the family decided to have a reunion. July was chosen as the time, and the multi-purpose building at Marathon Park was chosen as the place. More than 1,000 members of the Goetsch family appeared. Many old acquaintances were renewed and new ones were made, and the day was enjoyed by all. We made the center fold of the Focus for this occasion. It explains a little more why my story can be called "Cousins by the Dozen". We've had a reunion of this group every four years thereafter. Our dad's side of the family has never had a reunion, but would probably draw equally as many people.
Whenever asks me if I am related to so and so, I just answer, "Those are not my relatives, -they're my mother's", because I cannot keep track of cousins once removed or twice removed, when I have all I can do to keep track of my first cousins.
At school, the teachers often discussed various people, and it happened so often to be someone related to me, that they finally said, "We'd better not talk about anybody anymore, as they usually are related to Martha".
Recently, now that all my cousins have finished raising their families, are retired, and many have lost their spouses, we are getting re-acquainted with more and more of them. Now we can truly get to know them and we cherish their friendship. We reminisce a lot, and when it comes to reunion time, we can truly enjoy the day.