Family

Love this picture of Antonia Marie Novy Sychra taken with her chickens.

We had been meaning to go and visit for . . . oh, 10 or 12 years anyway.  Today, we finally climbed in the car and went and visited Himself's cousin Kathy and her husband, Joe Clinton.  These are good folks.  Himself and Kathy are posessed of family genes that never change -- they are recognized by people that haven't seen them in 40 years.

Himself's mother and Kathy's father, Harold Sychra were brother and sister.  What great hospitality and shared interests we enjoyed today.  We sat and talked across family photographs and scrapbooks (trading items and gifting others; looking and remembering) and then these hospitable cousins took us on an old houses tour. 

Joe and Antonia Sychra's 50th wedding anniversary

with their grandsons and only granddaughter, Kathy.

That bitty guy front and left,  is Kent Jay Hofmeister. 

The Sychra women had style and fashion sense. 

LaRene Lucille Sychra Hofmeister.

Kathy and Joe own 1000 acres of Cass County farm land.  (well, they own 960 . . . and I said Joe, how can you not go out and buy 40 more? and he agreed.)  They own 4 houses or five.  They live in a big "4 square" house where they raised their 6 children (and lost Jennifer, their oldest daughter to cancer), they own Joe's grandfather's "4 square" house that daughter Joni and SIL live in, they own "Billie's" house just south of their own that their daughter Ann lives in on the weekends with her 3 children . . .  and, oh yes, at least one more that son Mark and wife Missie live in.  It is small and Mark and Missie are moving soon to a 1970s home they bought. 

But for me, this lover of old houses and oak furniture and salvage, I had a hey day! 

These two cousins were born in the same year and graduated in 1965.

 Kathy and Lanny, are still recognized by school mates 50 years after their graduation! 

Photo taken September 2011.