Kee/Key Reunion in 2000

In the year 2000 I finally got to go to that wonderful town of Camden, TN. I had heard Dad and his brothers talk about living there and they would get together and go "HOME." Charles would go along with them, they loved to show him places they had known. Charles loved it so much that he retired and he and Norma lived there for years.

The cousins all got together to try to revive the old Kee/Key Reunion that had been there in the past, some said it had been 32 years since the last one. Charles and Norma were on the committee that got the reunion together. They said the town was so different now with a new modern courthouse and a new library. We met on Saturday morning at the library, name tags were furnished and the fun began as we each searched out cousins that we had been in contact with on the Internet. There were quite a few there, they told us later that there were members from 10 of the 13 children of William Riley Key. Later that afternoon we all visited the local cemeteries until it came a shower, we stayed under an arbor in one of the cemeteries until the shower passed, visiting and learning more about the cousins we had never met before. It was quite an afternoon.

Later that evening we all met again at a local bank community room to enjoy a catered bar-b-que dinner. After the meal we all visited again with others who were not at the library or on the cemetery tour. It was something else to know you had so many descendants of the same couple. Tales were told and histories were shared about the long ago generations. The following day we had a pot-luck lunch at the Nathan Bedfore Forrest State Park near Eva, TN, which is only a few miles from Camden, the town. There were more cousins to meet, they came from everywhere ----- California, Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, and South Dakota-- to just name a few places, I can't remember all the states or members represented.

Cousin Grady Kee, had the church records from the early years when our great-grandpa was church clerk, until he was called before the church for infidelity. Our children and grand children really got a laugh about that, but I think they were like me, just a bit ashamed. I think compared to this day and time, morals have always been the same. If I never get to go to another reunion there, I can say I really enjoyed that one. It put a light on a lot of things I had heard the grown ups speak of in the past, about how the name was Key at the beginning and changed to Kee and then back to Key. Some of the descendants in Arkansas go by the spelling Key, some in other states go by Kee. However, we found out we had a lot in common.