Faces of the First Schumm Reunion

1924 Schumm Reunion

The Schumm reunion is this coming Sunday. The descendants of John George Schumm have had a reunion nearly every two years since 1924 at Zion Lutheran Church in Schumm. John George Schumm and his five children immigrated to America in 1833 and they established the village and church at Schumm in about 1838.

The Schumm family in America has grown ever since. We updated the Schumm History and Genealogy in 2010 and there were over 7600 individuals and over 2500 families in the database at that time.

I have been studying the large photo of that first Schumm reunion in 1924. The complete photo is shown on the blog post, “It’s Family Reunion Time”, posted a few weeks back. After I scanned the photo I enlarged it so I could see the details of the faces of those gathered in front of the massive barn that was once on the Schumm homestead. Below are some of those images.

I believe the gentleman in the photo below was my great-grandfather, Louis Schumm (1851-1938). He looks like he may be dozing off.

My great-grandfather, Louis Schumm. (1851-1938)

Or perhaps Louis could not keep his eyes open because of the bright summer sun. This little girl looks like she was trying to shade her eyes from the sun:

Some of the ladies wore splendid hats:

Hats were also popular with the men, who seemed to favor the straw variety:

Some of the children just couldn’t hold still and their faces will forever be a blur:

While others were caught on film while doing, well, who knows?

There was entertainment at the reunion, too:

I would love to know the identities of the individuals in the photo. Perhaps someone has their names written down. I’ll try to find out Sunday.

The vast majority of those in the photo are gone but a few are still alive today. Velma Schumm and her third cousin Karl Schumm are both now 98 years old. They were probably among the children sitting on the ground in front and both plan to be at Sunday’s reunion. Maybe they remember where they were positioned in the photo.

We have asked people to bring family photos Sunday and I will scan as many as I can with my portable Flip Pal Scanner. I plan to create a slide show with the scanned photos and pass out copies at the 2014 reunion.

I’m sure John George Schumm would be very pleased to know how much his family has grown and that they and reside in nearly every state in the Union. He would also be pleased to know that many of them carry on the Lutheran faith. The Bible he brought with him from Germany will be donated to Zion’s congregation during Sunday’s church service.

John George will probably be looking down fondly from heaven at everyone gathered at this year’s Schumm reunion.

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