My Uncle Elmer Kreider died last Thursday. In my mother's family of 11 children, Elmer was the 6th child (my mother was the 5th). He married my Aunt Bertha and together they had 9 children. Bertha died in 1994 and in 2000, Uncle Elmer married my Aunt Martha who had lost her husband (my Uncle Harold) in 1996. Harold and Martha had nine children as well, so when Elmer and Martha married each other they had a combined family of 18 children and their children were actually first cousins! This also means that Elmer married his sister-in-law and Martha married her brother-in-law. If you are confused by now that is okay. I am confused as well.
Both these families had been ones that joined the Eastern Mennonite Church in the late sixties. This was a very difficult time for the Kreider family and a great divide was created between the siblings that chose to not join the Eastern Church and those that did. This rift was never overcome and I rarely saw my Kreider cousins except at an occasional family reunion. After the split of the Eastern Church, we did not visit with these families anymore. I'm wise enough to know that there are two sides to every conflict, but growing up I was under the opinion that we were not welcome in these families because we were heathens and destined for hell.
I do have some pleasant memories of playing with cousins that were closest to my age before the families went their separate ways. There were 4 of us girl cousins who were born the same year and we enjoyed each other's company and although we didn't see each other very often, it was always good to catch up with them again when we got together. I sense that my generation does not have the hostility toward each other that my parents did. Many of them came to my mother and father's funerals and I and my siblings really appreciated it.
Lester, Gene and Rhoda, and Steve and I made plans to go together to Uncle Elmer's viewing on Tuesday evening. We knew that these viewings draw tremendously large crowds and the fact that Uncle Elmer had been a bishop in the Eastern church for 36 years would only increase the numbers that would come to pay their respect to his family. There was a three hour afternoon viewing and then the evening viewing was from 6:00 to 9:00. We decided to go late in the hopes of avoiding the fullest and busiest part of the evening.
We pulled into the parking lot at 8:35 pm. Even in the dark, we could see that it was a mass of black cars and vans. We walked to the back of the church and two kind gentleman greeted us at the door. We stuck out like sore thumbs. Everyone around us was dressed in very plain dress and all heads turned to look at us. The men looked at us inquiringly and then hesitantly asked who we were. We explained that our mother had been a sister to the deceased. This gave them pause and they appeared to be uncertain about what to do. Then one of them said that the line began in the basement and that there would be a two hour wait. Did we want to stay? We tried not to appear shocked and after looking at each other we responded that yes we would stay. We had not come all this way for nothing and we resigned ourselves to not getting home until well after midnight.
As we entered the basement (this was a fairly large church) we saw that it was full of people sitting on chairs. This was the first stop in the waiting game. After about an hour wait in the basement you would get moved up to the pews in the sanctuary where you would wait another hour until finally being allowed to join the line at the back of the church that moved to the front and greeted the family.
The five of us signed the guest register and then as we moved further into the basement, one of the gentlemen that had met us at the door, motioned for us to follow him. Questioningly, we did as we were told. He took us right up the basement steps, into the sanctuary and to the back of the line that was waiting to walk up to the casket. We had been bumped ahead of all the people in the basement and all the people sitting in the sanctuary! He told us that since we were family, they decided to move us through. We were elated but also a little embarrassed. As we waited in the line, we saw more cousins who were patiently sitting on the benches, waiting their turn. They were as close family as we were, but they were not given the red carpet treatment. My cousin Martha came over to talk to me and asked how we got so fortunate, because they had already be waiting an hour and a half. I said I had no idea and we just laughed. It was good to talk with her again. As we made are way up to the front, more relatives came and talked with us. As I looked around, I did not see one other person other than the five of us that was not dressed conservatively. I think that this was the reason we were bumped up. Everyone else just treated the two hour wait as a social time where they caught up with friends and family. I believe they thought we would be uncomfortable in this setting for an extended period of time and so moved us to the front of the line.
I have a total of 67 cousins on the Kreider side and 18 of them were in the viewing greeting line. They were easy to talk with and they seemed genuinely appreciative that we came to pay our respects. We may have nothing in common as far as the way we live and our religion, but we are family. This is important. As different as they are from me, I respect how they choose to live. I hope that they can do the same for me.
PS. If you think 67 cousins is a lot, Steve has 74 cousins on the Rohrer side. Both our mothers come from a family of 11 children and many of them had large families. Neither of us can begin to put names to all our cousins. I find that kind of sad.
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