The Jones Family Junction: The Jones Reunion and the rest of our Ohio trip ...

Before we drove out of Coshocton Sunday morning, I asked Mr. Jones to take me to see the house his family moved into in late 1951 or early in 1952 (Mr. Jones is unsure of the exact year) so that I could take a picture of it. He told me it looked a lot different back then ~ the red brick was painted white, there was no fence with pretty flowers ... in fact, when his dad first purchased the house (he paid $2500 for it and then borrowed another $2000 to renovate it) ~ there was no heat or indoor plumbing! His mom very wisely refused to move into the house until both of those problems were resolved. So his dad went to work on it! He must have finished work on it sometime before January of 1953 because we know for a fact that Aunt Kathie was born right here ... her mom didn't make it to the hospital in time!

We decided to take the scenic route to the reunion, which was being held outside of Columbus in a little place called Westerville. I snapped a picture of this extremely unusual office building ...

This is the headquarters of Longaberger Baskets ... a seven-story office building ... my oh my ... a picnic basket big enough for Yogi Bear! Remember how I told you there are odd names in this part of Ohio? Let me give you some examples: Tuscarawas, the Walhonding River, Licking County, Gnadenhutten (don't even ask me HOW to pronounce it!), Frazeysburg, Conesville ... and that's just a few of them! We didn't drive through all of those places, but I just thought I'd tell you about them anyway.

We did drive through Newark, which was kind of on the way to the reunion. This is the beautiful court house in Newark ... I just love the architecture of these old buildings. Anyway, Newark is where Mr. Jones's grandparents used to live, 37 miles away from Coshocton, and when he was little, his family would ride the train all the way there. Another reason why he loves trains so much! Good memories.

We were driving around the tracks in Newark and stopped to take a few pictures of this train that was moving. I was out in this field and suddenly I heard Mr. Jones exclaim, "Why, that's Roger!"

Roger is another train buddy ... he lives and works all around this area of Ohio. On a prior trip to Coshocton, we "ran into him" while he was operating a different train and Roger actually allowed ME to DRIVE THE TRAIN ... for just a little bit! It was really fun. This time, we only waved to him at a distance and he and Mr. Jones shouted to each other for a little while.

This is the very nicely restored Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Newark ... Mr. Jones remembers this place very well!

We finally arrived at the reunion over at Blendon Woods and joined a bunch of family for a delicious potluck and lots of chatter ...

I'm not very good with names on this side of the family as we don't travel to Ohio often enough for me to get good at it! Aunt Mildred (in the white sweater) turned 90 earlier this month. There was a birthday cake for her and lots and lots of birthday cards. Aunt Mary is standing up talking to Tom and her Chuck and Tom's wife.

And here are the four siblings, NOT in order of their birth but coupled as to which side of the family they look like! Mr. Jones and Kathie resemble more the Jones side (although Kathie looks a lot like her mom), and Peg and Rick have a lot of "Stage" in them.

I neglected to take very many people pictures (again!) ... but perhaps you can see some folk and actually name them if you double click on the picture above. We had a good time visiting with everyone. I heard the story about how Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck were robbed a year ago ... really sad that someone would rob such dear folk as they are! We ate all of the good food and made our rounds with everyone possible ... and then it was time to go!

Mr. Jones and I drove as far as Marion and spent the night. We had talked to a young fellow while in Marion the prior Friday who told us that Fostoria was his favorite place to watch trains ... and had we ever been there? We looked at our map, and plotted our course through Fostoria for our ride home Monday. Here are a few pictures along the way ... I hope you'll excuse these rather NONtrain pictures ... I was looking to get a nice cornfield + Queen Anne's lace + barn picture to go with some beautiful scriptures and found it on our route to Fostoria!

"God is the one who gives seed to the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, He will give you many opportunities to do good, and he will produce a harvest of generosity in you." 2 Corinthians 9:10

"Don't get tired of doing what is good. Don't get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time." Galatians 6:9

We enjoyed our drive to Fostoria. What a great little place. Of course, Fostoria is known for its GLASS and used to have 13 glass factories in its day.

But we were here to see TRAINS ...

and we saw a bunch of them!

A woman from the Fostoria Rail Preservation Society came by where we were trainspotting and gave us a bunch of good information about the history of the rails around here. She was really interesting and knew a bunch of cool information.

When the boys were small, we would actually go to a section of tracks in Grand Rapids and wait for a train to pass and then count all of the cars ... so it's not just Mr. Jones who watches trains!