Greetings to all the descendants of Fritz and Caroline Lange
I am Jane, daughter of Dora Lange Bredehoeft. Although my first name is Carolyn, I suppose
named after Grandma Caroline, I have almost always just used my middle name of Jane.
My sister Joyce and I decided this past summer that it was time to get together a Lange family
reunion.
In the past she and I had not been able to attend them because of our jobs and all the things
associated with maintaining homes by ourselves.
Now that we are both retired we are more able to do some of the things that we always wanted
to do in the past. Although I am still employed at another job after my retirement from the
government, I am a self employed Realtor and therefore can arrange my own work schedules.
Joyce is not actually sitting around doing nothing either, since she does a lot of volunteer work
at the Nursing Home and also still does so much work for her church.
Several years ago we put together a Bredehoeft family reunion. We felt it was a big success
because we brought together about 160 family members (who didn’t even know each other)
from 13 different states. Since then we have had the second reunion in 2003 and are looking
forward to the third one in 2005.
We have been having the reunions at the Tri-City Country Club at Emma, with the club catering
a meal for us. Before the first reunion we had established a family treasury. We managed to
put some money in there prior to the reunion by having an auction of several items. Joyce built
a fantastic family web site on the internet at www.jacobbredehoeft.org. Through family letters
that we sent out to all the family scattered all over the country and through the web site we were
able to auction off a family heirloom, which I had in my possession. It was the wedding ring of
my Grandma Margaretha Bredehoeft which I had purchased at the disposition sale of my
parents belongings and which I donated for the auction. There was some very competitive
bidding and it eventually went to a great granddaughter of Margaretha who probably will pass it
down to other family members in the future. At any rate this was the beginning of the family
treasury. There were donations made by members of the family, some of which also went to the
costs of the quarterly letters that were written and mailed.
When Joyce and I did our annual visit this summer to see our cousin Roy Lange he was so
enthusiastic about a reunion and that we would get it together. In fact a few days after we had
visited him I received in the mail a generous donation from him to help with some of the
expenses of contacting every one and to get the Lange family treasury started.
Because we had generated some funds prior to the reunion, we were able to pay the club for
the use of their building, and we were able to negotiate a good price for the individual meal
tickets.
The catering of the food by someone else let everyone who came enjoy each others company
without having to worry about preparing food in advance, bringing it the day of the reunion, and
then worry about cleaning up after it was over. This is especially helpful when there are so
many of the family who do not live right in the local area.
Other things we have done to keep the treasury going are:
We got the family members to submit their favorite recipes and Joyce compiled a wonderful
family cookbook. We sold these at a price to cover Joyce’s expenses of printing and with an
additional amount per each book which went into the treasury.
We have had a silent auction at both of the reunions of craft items and family heirlooms which
were donated by some of the family. This money was added to the treasury to maintain it. One
of the cousins is the treasurer and has the money in an interest bearing account.
Since Joyce and I are two of younger grandchildren, we really did not get to know some of our
Lange first cousins very well since they were grown and out into the world before we were. We
had the same situation on the Bredehoeft side of our family and we feel that the reunions have
certainly helped us to get to know the family.
On the web site that Joyce built we have photos of all the people who wanted to submit them
and by just looking at the pictures and seeing where they fit into the family it has helped me a
lot. Joyce has indicated that she could build a web site for the Lange family someway that might
not be as expensive as the one she now maintains, perhaps by providing a link to it through the
Bredehoeft web site.
Our objective would be to try to have our first reunion this summer in 2005. The Bredehoeft
reunion will be either be mid to late July or very early August. If we could plan the Lange
reunion to be about the same time perhaps some of Harry and Dora’s large clan could make the
trip (they are scattered from Michigan, to Texas, to Georgia, to California) and attend both
reunions.
This letter is just going to the living grandchildren, or the living spouses of those who are
deceased, of Fritz and Caroline. I will be wanting to send a letter to ALL the descendants so
that all will be invited. I have already asked Armond Schelp to get all the names and addresses
of Lena and Bill’s Clan. He sent me those via e-mail. And, of course, I have all the names and
addresses of Dora and Harry’s Clan. So that leaves me needing the names and addresses of
the descendants of the the Ben and Bertha Clan, the August and Stella Clan, and the Liese and
Paul Clan. Thank you to you, Roy, for sending me the list from your family that I received
today. Would you all be kind enough to send me those as soon as you can, either by regular
mail to Jane Schroer, 402 W Olive, Raymore, Mo. 64083, or by e-mail to jsraymore@aol.com.
There is a lot of planning needed to make it a fun and successful reunion. Joyce and I would be
doing this together (and she is in Texas), so names and addresses and pictures would be very
much appreciated. We had a lot of fun doing the Bredehoeft reunion and we have a few things
up our sleeves to make this a fun time at the Lange reunion. By the way, we already have a
name for it --The Lange’s Come Home. Now, I am going to just leave you hanging, wondering
why we chose that theme.
Hope to hear from you soon and – May all of your tomorrows be better than your yesterdays.
Cousin Jane Schroer