Caprock Chronicles: The McLaurin family’s 90th annual reunion
Editor’s Note: Jack Becker is the editor of Caprock Chronicles and is a Librarian Emeritus from Texas Tech University. He can be reached at jack.becker@ttu.edu. Today’s article about the McLaurin Family Reunion is by Paul Carlson, Emeritus Professor of History at Texas Tech.
Here is a remarkable phenomenon: The big and scattered McLaurin Family of the Llano Estacado and West Texas will hold its 90th consecutive annual family reunion in Abilene, near where its first reunion occurred nearly a century ago.
The large family reaches back to Christopher Columbus (C.C.) and Juliet (Hammock) McLaurin who settled in Lynn County in 1903. C. C. and Juliet, both born in Mississippi, married in 1876, and in 1898 brought their family of eight children - five boys and three girls - to West Texas. They established a home in Jones County east of Anson.
In 1903, C.C., 47-years-old, and Juliet, 42, homesteaded a piece of land near Tahoka. Their property, described as “rugged land,” may have been located toward the breaks and draws of Tahoka Lake. C.C. planted a large fruit orchard on the place and may have been the first farmer in the area to grow cotton. Their ninth child, a girl named Bertie, was born in Lynn County in 1903 but died before the year was out.
Nonetheless, over the next 20-plus years, C.C. and Juliet became successful and prominent farmers and respected community leaders in Tahoka and Lynn County. Their children and grandchildren, nearly all of whom made their homes in West Texas, spread the extended family widely over the region. But also, over the years the family kept in close touch, which opened the way for annual family reunions.
The first reunion occurred in 1933, seven years after C.C. had died. Family members gathered in Jones County at the Anson home of J.C. and Maude (daughter of C.C. and Juliet) McLaurin Fielder. The next year it occurred in O’Donnell in Lynn County where several McLaurin families lived, and in 1936 the family moved its large reunion to the Baptist Encampment Grounds on the Clear Fork of The Brazos River at Lueders in eastern Jones County. It occurred there each year until 1948, when the family moved it to Cisco in a recreation area behind the dam at Lake Cisco.
In 1952, the family held the reunion at a park in Ruidoso, N.M., and then in 1954 moved it south of San Angelo to Christoval on the banks of the South Concho River. Over the next 30 years it moved around West Texas, including Mackenzie State Park in Lubbock, O’Donnell Community Center, Lake Brownwood Mountain View Lodge, Butman Methodist Camp in Abilene, plus a six-year stint at the Sacramento, N.M., Methodist Camp.
From 1989 through 2018, the family held its reunion in Ruidoso, mainly at the La Junta camp ground. This quarter century period represented perhaps the largest reunions in terms of number of people in attendance. Since then, the reunion has moved back to Texas, including Lubbock, Wolfforth, Arlington, and Childress. Even during the COVID-19 year of 2020, the family held a successful Zoom reunion.
In the early days, the reunions began on Thursday and continued through Sunday. They are a bit shorter now. During World War II, several of the McLaurin men were serving in the military and of course did not attend.
At each reunion, attendees played games (cards, board, dominoes, and others), plus there was boating, fishing and swimming (sometimes swimming lessons), softball and volley ball, big cover dish meals, quiet evening hours around campfires, stories told and retold, and general remembrances with good talk.
Each site held something special for attendees. At Cisco, there was a very large swimming pool as well as a skating rink. The park had places for camper trailers.
In Christoval there was a rather large meeting room to gather, as well as a cafeteria. The “main thing about Christoval,” remembered one family member, “was the river. There was boating and of course lots of swimming. There was a ‘slab’ where there would be dancing, usually on Saturday night.” Christoval was a favorite place, but perhaps the Lueders campground, at least for “old timers,” was the more popular site.
And, there was Ruidoso. It had the race track as well as downtown shops, plus hiking and other activities. Everyone enjoyed the cool weather in the mountains around Ruidoso, especially as the reunion often occurred in July or August. There was a tabernacle type structure in one of the parks where the family gathered for meals. In the 1990s and 2000s Ruidoso attracted a lot of McLaurin members.
Family members often bring guests. And, older folks joined with younger members to pool rides to the site and assist with getting around to the various activities. The family holds a business meeting each year, discusses a site for the next reunion, and gives out various “awards." In addition, each year, family members bring items to be sold and auctioned off to the highest bidders. Proceeds from the sales help to promote and finance the next year’s reunion.
Clearly, the annual McLaurin reunion has been a major family event, scheduled now for its 90th consecutive year.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Caprock Chronicles: The McLaurin family’s 90th annual reunion
