Descendents of early Sweet Home settlers will be honored from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 11, during a special reception held at the Senior Center.
The event, a joint effort of the Sweet Home city Planning Department, the Genealogy Society, and the East Linn Museum, will be part of the Frontier Sportsman’s Holiday festivities that will take place this Friday through Sunday. (For more on other events, see the festival and Sweet Home Rodeo program inside today’s edition.)
Since late February a list of families whose ancestors owned land in or around the Sweet Home area, when the community was founded, has been put together and members of those families have been contacted about attending the event.
During the Sportsman’s Holiday Grand Parade a float, designed and constructed by museum volunteers, will carry some of the participants through Sweet Home streets.
During the parade, flyers about the celebration, which is being called “A Journey Through Time,” will be handed out to spectators, said Edene Flierl of the city Planning Department, who is helping to plan the event.
Mayor Craig Fentiman will open the ceremony by introducing seven of the town’s former mayors, who will be attending the celebration as special guests. Each family will tell stories of early Sweet Home and later will be interviewed and asked about who their ancestors were and what they did.
Punch, coffee, tea, cookies and other snacks will be served, Flierl said.
“We want to video tape this so that we can show some people who still know stories about Sweet Home,” said Corky Lowen, one of the organizers.
She said a wide array of participants is expected, ranging in age from their early 40s all the way to one who is in her late 90s.
Lowen said she expects 10 families to attend, including the Ames family who were one of the first to settle here. There are still a few people on the list who are unconfirmed at this point, she said.
Lowen said she would like to see as many families participate as possible. She said the event has been many months in the making.
In addition to families from the community, there will be a family from Eugene whose roots have been traced to Sweet Home’s beginnings, Flierl said.
She said a great amount of the credit for the research behind the event goes to Glenda Hopkins and Gale Gregory of the East Linn Museum, and Lowen of the Genealogy Society.
“‘I would not have known where to begin if it weren’t for them,” Flierl said.
Anyone descended from an early Sweet Home settler who would like to take part in the celebration may contact Lowen at 367-3864 between 4 and 10 p.m. or Flierl in the Planning Department at 367-8113 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.to reserve a place.
“We would like as many people as possible, but we just don’t know all of them,” Lowen said, laughing.