The In-person Standing Family Reunion, June 24, 2023

Our family reunion, even with this simplified delivery and shorter time frame, far exceeds the "family reunion" of my nurse friend Sally who excitedly told me that they had just had a family reunion. I asked her to tell me about it. "Well," she said, "my sister drove from Indiana, my brother drove up from Kansas and I drove from Minneapolis. We all met in a park and sat under a tree." "Sounds nice," I said. (While I secretly thought of how much richer our gathering is with attendees coming from the many branches of our 153-year-long tenure in America!)

We are so rich in cousins!! When we go to these Standing Reunions, there are people we still see in person OR on-line, one way or another, and still have an interest in catching up with. Tim Johnson said he missed name tags. I can see that would have been helpful - there’s been a time delay between encounters. I forgot and left them at home (actually they weren't even on my list.)

When I looked at the "Who's Coming" list it seemed to me that the slender little Alfred Standing branch might have the best representation this time. And if Leah (who had to work) and her mom Diane--who both would come for the Alfred Standing family reunion next day--had been able to be there the "brothers" numbers would have been almost equal. Nancy Johnsen's count relating to the photo shows 10 Charlie Standing members, 8 Henry Standing members and 7 going on 8 Alfred Standing members. (As Cheryl Hawbecker, Sally Russell's daughter in the Alfred Standing branch, was also at the reunion for a time but she's not in the photo. She now lives in Aunt Mildred and Uncle Bernard's former home. So, if Leah and Diane had only been there the Alfred and Charlie branches would have tied for attendance.)

We had a pretty good time. The catered lunch thoughtfully took in dietary considerations. The Osa Bricker gluten-free cookies I said I'd drive 300 miles for were just as good as the last time. There were NO neighbors joining us to play volleyball. In fact, we didn't even put up the net. But the children found a trove of good books in the Little Schoolhouse and Grandma Deb read to them all afternoon. There was some plain old visiting in the shade of the lawn after the photo taking.

But we were also treated to a thoughtful memorial video titled "The Enigma" - - a survey of a critical time in John Griffith's life right after high school when he made his life-altering decision to refuse conscription for World War 1. Son Jonathan Griffith compiled this video from newspaper clippings and a high school yearbook John Griffith had preserved. Jonathan was addressing a question he had tried to understand—what made his dad stand up to the US Government and defy lock-step conscription? This decision would alter John Griffith's life and also cause loss of income for his Methodist minister father, who was stripped of his pastorate at the prosperous mill town and transferred to a church that paid only half his former salary.

As I said to Jonathan, I had called for an obituary, but we got a memorial: Your dad was pretty amazing, rising full-blown from the soil of his father's anti-war stance in a state where there were few countervailing influences to stand against True Blue Patriotism, no matter the personal or familial cost.

Obviously, you've spent a lifetime wondering about your father: peeling back the layers of the enigma of how he rose up so brave and so alone to take his stand. I read parts of your mom's book about Chris. She talks about the time when she fell in love with John and how "that mountain man" carried her over the threshold of their little cabin after they were married."

I'm attaching this video The Enigma (22 minutes) for all the cousins to view and enjoy.

The other "off the wall" escapade of our "in-person reunion" was our tour of Grade A Organic Gardens, an intensive vegetable growing operation begun several years ago by Jordan and Whitney Clasen with funding from SILT (Sustainable Iowa Land Trust). SILT's mission is to preserve Iowa farmland for sustainable table food farming, ensuring that future generations of Iowans can access affordable farmland and the food it can grow.

Grade A Gardens has many ties to our family and the Bear Creek Meeting. The little slide and swing set on the Meeting House grounds is not lonesome. Clasen children Knute and Wilhelmina come over to play there regularly with mom Whitney. The land the Clasens farm was tended before their ownership by two generations of Standing family farmers, Henry (oldest son of George the Immigrant) and Henry's nephew and Charlie's son Bernard. The land passed from the family upon the death of Bernard's son Herbert in 2012.

Whitney led 8 of us on a tour of the intensively cultivated 8 acres dedicated to vegetable production. The barn on the property is designed for their production needs. It is constructed of repurposed beams salvaged from old barns which have been torn down. The hand-hewn fittings in the beams that once joined the old barns structurally are visible. The rails that extend across the barn at the height of the base of the roof suspend the +10 varieties of hard neck garlic the couple grows. The main barn "room" (which is big enough for weddings, square dances, and concerts beneath the swinging garlic bulbs) is attached to a smaller lean-to room which works as a storage area for the small-scale tillage equipment used on the farm (wish I could remember the name of that cute 15" wide cultivator -- it is the backbone of their equipment suite), the large tubs where produce is washed, and the cooler where the harvested vegetables are stored before being loaded on the truck that hauls it to the Central Des Moines Farmers' Market.

Our cousin, Nick Knight, of Knight Builders designed and built both the barn complex and the house.

The intensive serial cropping and multiple cuttings of crops like lettuce and kale make the most of the 8 vegetable garden acres. There are hoop houses for early season cropping. At the end of June a few vegetables were still under fabric row covers—possibly to protect from flea beetles.

Increased soil fertility comes from cover crops planted over winter and cut down and plowed under in the spring. It also comes from the mobile chicken coop. Inside a protective fence stands a chicken coop on wheels. Each day the chicken coop is moved beyond its location the previous day to a location right next to that spot. The daily relocation of the "coop on wheels" spreads the chicken manure around this space without "hot spot" build-up of too much manure in one area at the expense of a paltry spread of chicken manure elsewhere in the plot.

The couple have studied the comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition - a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology of Ohio Amish farmer John Kempf.   I can imagine the two Clasens sitting in the farm house on winter nights excitedly reading aloud from new publications by Kempf, who has a unique ability to simplify and clearly explain very complex concepts in the areas of soil and plant health.

Whitney said to us that, according to Kempf, bare soil is a wasted opportunity for building soil fertility. The Clasens inoculate their starter potato, sweet potato and garlic sets and the seeds of carrots and beets—with mycorrhizae to biodynamically boost their soil's fertility.

I said to cousin Jennifer Kuhn Sotelo that the optimism and passion of Whitney and Jason brings tears to my eyes. They and one full-time hired hand work incredibly hard, but they make it look easy. The farm is neat. There are rows of peach, apple, cherry, and plum trees on the less-intensive acres. Even the invasive black locust has a purpose - - there is a huge stack of black locust logs which will heat the house and barn in the winter.

I have heard family members say that there couldn't be a better succession to a new owner following our family's long tenure than that of Grade A Organic Gardens’ Whitney and Jason Clasen.

  The Enigma (22 minutes)

  To the June 24, 2023 Standing Reunion Business Meeting Minutes

  George and Deborah Standing Descendants Facebook Group