Byrnes Family & Friends Reunion 2005

We organized a 'Byrnes Family & Friends Reunion' in 2005, it was held at the Barnesboro Pool in Barnesboro (now Northern Cambria), Pennsylvania. Close to one hundred people attended. Click here to see the list.

Everyone had an excellent time. Some people said that if we hadn't had the reunion, they probably would never have been able to see many of the people with which they reconnected.

The reunion helpers (pictured above right) kept track of those attending the reunion in a notebook and Diane Byrnes Carl has it. The helpers also made sure everyone recieved a badge commemorating the reunion.

Karen Byrnes Harmon (above center) contributed a great deal of time and energy in making the reunion a success, and I think I still owe her money for coffee. Karen helped plan the reunion, she contacted people, and with the help of her husband Ed Harmon, provided everyone at the reunion with coffee. My brothers and sisters helped during the reunion and I should thank them too but they are siblings. Besides, didn't they get free chicken?

We collected money from everyone and Snappy Chef, a caterer from Altoona, PA, provided a great chicken dinner including chocolate cake. The night before the reunion, many people met for dinner at the Palace Hotel (now The City Hotel-Bar & Grill) in Northern Cambria.

A Troubled Cousin

Raphael Burns in the shooting article is Raphael Byrne (1855-1909) my first cousin three times removed. In different words, Raphael Byrne is my great-great-great-grandfathers' brothers' grandson. He is the fourth son of Francis Byrne and Isabella Weakland.

When I was young we used to visit the farm and homestead house where my grandmother was born in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. It was the Schrot homestead. It is a surrounding farm and a great old farm house which seems to have had more rooms built onto it through the years. Maybe this was the case as my grandmother had thirteen siblings.

When I visited, great-aunt Ruth was always there. Great-aunt Anna Sandri had a home in Curwensville but she would be there. Great-aunt Catharine Schrot, a nun, Sister Joseph Anne would many times spend time 'down home' and be there too.

In 1981, during a summer of a Byrnes Family and Friends Reunion at the Barnesboro pool, these three great-aunts invited my family to a chicken dinner, it was delicious. It was hot so we ate out on the back porch.

Right before the feast, Sr. Joseph Anne was trying to swat some flies and wasn't having much luck. My then nine-year-old son Chad had been watching her for awhile until he couldn't take it any more and grabbed that fly swatter off Sister Joseph Anne and began swatting the flies. I was glad he didn't knock Sister Joseph Anne down. Sister Joseph Anne was was very close to 100 years old when we saw her in August 1981, great-aunt Ruth was 83 and great-aunt Anna was 81 years of age.