I’d like to thank the Board of Director’s, the speakers and all those who attended this year’s reunion for making it a wonderful success. It was fabulous to see so many cousins returning from last year (32) as well as meeting fifteen new attendees. All totaled we had 47 attendees, three of which became new members of the KFA.

Our first attempt at a three-day reunion was overwhelmingly positive. Both groups who toured the Kimball homes and visited the Ipswich MA Museum had nothing but good reviews. Our guide Gordon Harris even went so far as to put identification flags on the Kimball graves.

This year’s speakers really out did themselves. On Friday we heard from Carol Kimball Stahl, Sylvia Morris and Mark Nichols. Carol began the sessions speaking about how to use the KFA Volumes of the History of the Kimball Family in America. She provided informative handouts which make great additions to the Resource Book. Sylvia spoke of her emotional journey to find her biological parents, only recently finding out she is a descendant of the Kimball line of “Mormon Royalty” as she so excitingly put it. Mark followed up with an historical talk about George Kimbel (6 Mar 1803 – 6 Mar 1836) who served alongside of Sam Huston, Davie Crockett and James Bowie. George was the commander of a group of reinforcements known the “Immortal 32”. They arrived at the Alamo on the March 1st and help hold the Alamo until the 6th. Kimbel County Texas is named after him. In addition to Mark’s talk there is interesting reading on the internet an in our Resource Book.

I have to thank Sylva Morris and Anne Falk for leading us in the Kimball song this year, it sounded so much better than last year!

Carol led off Saturday’s talks with another set of handouts describing how to work through the KFA Family Tree on Ancestry.com and how it all ties back to the KFA books. John Kimball from Austin, TX following with an impressive slide show regarding his father and his work with NASA during the Gemini and Apollo programs. His talk brought back many memories of staying up way past my bedtime watching all the lunar landings. Carolyn Muller of the Littleton (MA) Historical Society spoke about the Kimball family from Littleton and the immediate area. Along with her talk she brought some artifacts including the “Littleton Giant’s” shoes, and yes, they belonged to a Kimball. Nearly everyone tried to match their shoe size up with the outline of those huge shoes, no one came close. Richard Kimball closed out the talks with an update on the Laurie Cohen Kimball farm house and cemetery in Maine.

Richard introduced two new methods to assist with the funding of our scholarships. The first is the “1634 Society” for those who donate $500. and the second being the “Ipswich Society” for donations of $250. Both were very well received by the membership with many attendees indicating a willingness to become “Society” members. By the closing of the reunion four members had contributed to the “1634 Society” and two to the “Ipswich Society” providing a great start to the programs. Further details are included elsewhere in this issue of the KFA “Connections” newsletter.

     Doug McBride

KFA President (12th generation descendent of Richard Kimball)