Though the descendants of John William and Martha Marie Kessler Weseloh are scattered across the country, they claim Southeast Kansas as home.
“This is where my roots are,” said Bunny Fischer, née Barbara Ruth Weseloh, who has never lived in Kansas.
Fisher, 78, Wheat Ridge, Colo., and more than 160 relatives were in Iola last weekend for a family reunion. Iola’s Marsha Burris served as host.
The expansive family gets together every two years. By now, the majority live in California, with others in Texas, Delaware, and in between.
The tradition began, “because we wanted to meet other than at funerals,” said Burris, a fourth-generation Weseloh through her mother, the late Lois Weseloh Burris.
This year’s reunion was their 60th, a milestone that included taking a family photo in front of the former Grace Lutheran Church on South Walnut which is now Munchkinland and More day care center.
Four Weseloh brothers, Arnold, William, Virgil and Irvin, were charter members of the church, which was dedicated in 1952.
The reunion serves as a way “to relive the legacy of our parents and grandparents,” Fischer said of the four generations gathered.
To Fischer, who family members regard as their “cheerleader,” that legacy is faith. Specifically, Lutheran.
By Fischer’s telling, her grandmother Weseloh laid down the law.
“She wouldn’t move her family to a town that didn’t have a Lutheran school with a Lutheran church,” in their search for a place to settle, with stints in Texas and various Kansas towns. They eventually settled in rural Woodson County and had a dozen children.
Fischer’s dad, Morris, was born in Olpe, in Lyon County, home to Zion Lutheran Church. All that remains today is Zion Lutheran Cemetery.
That strong dedication to the church was passed down family lines, with many today serving as either pastors or teachers.
This year’s reunion included many attending Sunday morning services at Iola’s Grace Lutheran.
At the family’s first reunion in 1966, the family took a photo of them in front of the former church. The head count was 63.
Of the 60 reunions, 13 have been held in Iola, home to the Richard and Lois Burris family. Lois, whose father was Arnold Weseloh, was instrumental in seeing the reunions occur, Fischer said.
