We have now been forty-eight hours and change in the bosom of our Fleming aunts, uncles and cousins, and are overwhelmed (not to say overfed! —fatted calves have been slain, and barbecued) at our reception. We arrived Saturday evening at Aunt Alice’s home in Billerica MA after a marvelous morning at Viagra Falls just north of Buffalo, and stayed up late catching up on family histories and meeting the 450 some-odd cousins once-removed, second cousins, cousins-in-law and parties at interest who have accreted since our last visits (in 1960, 1971 and 1983 for Jeanne, Greg & Scott, and Rand respectively). On Sunday there was a lavish garden party at Aunt Theo’s in Nashua NH, with much of the heavy lifting (including the assembly of a canopy and the masterful grilling of the aforementioned fatted calves) undertaken by Cousin Eddie Kepka. Also on Sunday we visited the ancestral residence in Malden, built in 1904 by our great-great grandmother and still occupied by our grandparents when I was born.
Since we are a largish party we’ve been portioned out among the aunts and cousins, and I have been the beneficiary of Cousin Thea’s hospitality at her handsomely rustic, spacious and almost absurdly comfortable home (think pre-revolutionary Russian dacha and you’re not far off) in the piney woods of Amherst NH. Today we headed up the Maine coast a modest distance to Boothbay Harbor, which was pleasant, but if we had the day to do over again we all agreed that we’d have brought our swimming togs and made more time for the beach at Kennebunkport where, under clement skies and the vigilant surveillance of Secret Service snipers, we dipped our toes in the Atlantic surf (or surflet, really, as against a surfeit of wave action) and reveled in the salt breeze. Tomorrow we venture into Boston to sip American revolutionary iconography from the source.
Above: Top—Niecelet KG discovers the Atlantic. Bottom—The ancestral manse in Malden. Our elder brother passed his earliest days here, I believe.
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