2013 Reunion Report

Members of the Pierre Robert Family Association gathered in Robertville, SC in early June for its eighth biennial reunion. We were pleased to join the annual gathering of the Lawton and Allied Families Association (LAFA) since Pasteur Pierre Robert (1655-1715) is an ancestor both groups share.

 

On Friday evening, June 7, we met at Gloria Langford Tuten’s ancestral home in Robertville for a delicious supper catered by Mr. and Mrs. Pinckney, local residents who prepared fabulous  meals for us all weekend long. After the meal, we relocated a few yards across SC Hwy 462 to the Robertville Baptist Church where Gloria’s husband Redden is pastor and Gloria is pianist. Gloria and her sister, Aileene, treated the group to beautiful piano and organ music and shared educational and inspiring stories.

On Saturday, June 8, we began the day with breakfast in the fellowship hall of the church. We then moved into the sanctuary for the first meeting of the day. The LAFA conducted a bit of business:  inviting us to introduce ourselves to one another, thanking all the people who helped plan the reunion, and electing a slate of officers for the next year.  The group established a new position and elected Lawton O’Cain to fill the position. She will be in charge of the LAFA reunion program for the coming year. This was a commonsense and uncontested move since she has been instrumental in planning the reunions every year. After the business session, LAFA President (and President-Elect) Neale Hightower introduced me. I read a paper on the life of Pasteur Pierre Robert.  The bulk of the paper had been written by Tom Lawton in 1982 on the occasion of the 300^th anniversary of the ordination of Robert. Neale Hightower, using Carolyn Lawton Harrell’s book Kith and Kin and other sources, added some interesting historical background. I should have known better than to agree to read such an important work – especially when there were so many French names contained therein!  Hopefully our ancestors and the first families of South Carolina have forgiven me for butchering their names! And hopefully those present were so engrossed in Susan Daugherty’s accompanying slideshow from the 1996 family roots trip based in Charleston and the 1997 trip to Switzerland, that they hardly noticed when I stumbled.

 

After lunch, the group went to the old Robert family cemetery just a few miles down the road. Lawton O’Cain has overseen the maintenance of the cemetery and she has paid for trees to be removed from the grounds. If you would like to make a donation toward this effort, you may send a check directly to Lawton O'Cain/Lawton Family Association, 118 Third Street, Estill SC 29918.  Please write in the note section of the check that it is for Robert Cemetery Maintenance.

After the cemetery, the Pierre Robert Family Association gathered in the fellowship hall of the church for our program and business meeting.  Thanks to Secretary Emily Campbell the minutes of that meeting are included with this newsletter!  And, thanks to the good work of the group, the details of the next reunion are set.  It will be at the Bentley Hotel in Alexandria, LA on June 5-7, 2015 with Dr. Dana Robert, kinsperson and church history professor at Boston University, as the featured speaker! Mark your calendars and start gathering the family now!

 

The final item on the weekend schedule was a concluding dinner back on the front porch of Gloria’s family home. We left the meal to go our separate ways, basking in the fellowship that forever binds us together.

 

For those of you unable to join us, we spoke your names. We missed you and we anticipate with gladness our next reunion.