I will be helping Merton put out his Christmas letter in the next month. Since his mailing list includes fully half of the reunion mailing list, it makes sense to publicize the 2004 reunion in his Christmas letter. We can send out a separate mailing to those not on his list.

I have the Pennsylvania Zeisets on the "tree", though I had to go through the Baers to get them there. Recently, the LDS has filmed records in Germany that I believe will document the actual Zeisset connection. I won't be able to see any of the films until January or February.

I also have the Connecticut Zeissetts on the tree and need to give them a call some evening. I've been getting home too late in the evening to call the east coast.

I have not made any progress with the Kansas/Oklahoma Zeisets, but I feel a connection is right around the corner.

Lodging options for the reunion

1. I found three types of lodging in Manhattan
       a) Full service hotels, with restaurant on site, with hospitality suite or meeting room available. Price for room with king bed or two queens about $75 plus tax. Any catering would be through their staff.
       b) Limited service hotels, just as new and nice, with continental breakfast, but with no hospitality suites or meeting rooms. Price $70-85 plus tax. Catering could come from outside (and potentially cheaper than catering from a full-service hotel).
       c) Less expensive hotels/motels, no breakfast, no meeting rooms. Price $50-65.

2. What is it that we want?
       a) Mostly we want out-of-towners to stay in one place so that we can get to know one another better, and possibly enjoy carpooling to events elsewhere. If we had people opting out of the group hotel to chooses less expensive accommodations, that would defeat the point of getting the group hotel in the first place. (Not everyone will want to do the same thing, though, and we have already heard from one family planning to camp.)
       b) A gathering room, either a living room associated with a suite or a separate meeting room, would be helpful as a place to hang out. Nonetheless, if we have lots of activities planned, this may not have a major role.
       c) A place for catered meals. This may or may not make sense. If we can get someone to cater at the Senior Center in Leonardville we would be more likely to get local participation. We might still have pot luck at the church on Sunday as usual, but we couldn't depend on locals bringing in food more than once. Another option is to go as a group to a restaurant, but I haven't checked which ones have banquet rooms.

3. What are the primary options?
       a) Full-service hotels
          1) Holiday Inn on Rt __ toward the airport. Certainly the most inviting for families, with a pool and miniature golf right in the center of an indoor courtyard. A hospitality suite (regular room attached to a living room with a couch ($125) fronts onto the pool area. Nice airy feel. A couple of miles farther from Leonardville.
          2) Ramada Inn, across from K-State. This place also had suites ($169), but on the 3rd floor, a little out of the way. Most attractive was their meeting room with easy chairs and a fireplace ($50). Harder to find than the hotels on major highways.
       b) Limited-service hotels--all near the intersection of US 24 and Ks 177
          1) Fairfield Inn ($74). No meeting room per se, but their large breakfast room could be used any time except in the morning for free. Continental breakfast is included.
          2) Comfort Inn ($70). No meeting rooms, but some rooms have a king bed with a couch and a refrigerator.
          3) Hampton Inn ($85). Meeting room ("cold") ($100). Continental breakfast.
       c) Less expensive hotels - I didn't check these out.
          1) Motel 6
          2) Super 8

4. Where do we go from here? First, we need to figure out what kind of amenities we need--do we want to have a hospitality suite or meeting room, and would we want to cater meals there?
       Comments?

Incidentally, I did check out a church camp near Junction City. I was not impressed.

I would like to make a decision and make a reservation in January or February after we hear back from people on the questionnaire we have in the works.

I confirmed yesterday with Cheryl Collins of the Riley County Historical Society that they would probably be willing to develop an exhibit for our group to visit Saturday morning, August 14. She will get back to me in January, but we mentioned a variety of elements that could be included, including early development of Leonardville and nearby areas (including influence of the railroad), German immigrants to Riley County, family history projects, etc. Can you think of any other ideas we want to suggest to her?

I'd like to see them include some of the Winkler/Winkler Mill history as I think at that's where Bertha lived for a time. I also think the history of the mill is quite interesting. Clothing of the late 1800s would be interesting. They'll surely include information about the churches, particularly the Leonardville EUB church. If there is anything about the photographers of the area, I'd like to see that...That's all I can think of right now.

I decided to respond to the questionairre data on the message board.

I really like the idea of a family information table, or whatever it was called. I especially liked the part about the "how to" suggestion. I can bring lots of copies of forms and family tree things and so forth. Whereas we've done most of the work within our family and the information is there, people may want to start working on a spouse's family or something like that. I also thought I'd make some copies of the census reports and can include census extraction forms and so forth. I can make a list of resources for the new researcher and that sort of thing. It wouldn't require that much time on my part.

The Oneida cemetery is quite a trip, but it may be particularly worthwhile for the Swart line to go over there, especially if they are coming from a distance. Maybe they want to spend Saturday doing that, while others could stay in Leonardville. Another option is to go up there with a camera and put together at least a little slide show. Or I can try to twist Ruth and Carl's arm into putting something together.

I emailed Paul that Betty and Harold Weller are volunteering to help and Betty specifically would help with little "party favors" or door prizes. She's very talented in that department. I've seen her work!

I don't know how many total questionairres went out, but it looks like there was a good response. It looks like it may be unrealistic to try to get a block of rooms at one lodging facility.

Hi! We just stumbled across this page through links on a google search. We are part of the Kansas clan of Zeisset decendants. We would be interested in info about the 2004 reunion....Our grandmother is Lila (Zeisset) Dickson, has 10 grown kids of her own, and a slew of grandkids. I'm sure we could provide more updated info for your ancestry page. Contact info is e-mail erikahead@cox.net.

Edited by author 06-02-2004 10:39 PM
Ray tallied the results of our survey earlier this year. It appears that the activities are generating a lot of interest. Since the questionnaire allowed responses including "yes, definitely", "yes, maybe", "probably not" and "definitely not", we added the first two categories together in the righthand column to give us something of an upper limit on attendance. A few others who did not complete questionnaires have said they are planning to come.

..................Definitely . Definitely
Saturday, Aug 14................+ Maybe
Historical Society....... 25 ....... 53
Lunch.................... 29 ....... 46
Bus tour................. 35 ....... 57
Supper................... 27 ....... 48
Evening program.......... 29 ....... 56

Sunday, Aug 15
Coffee................... 28 ....... 43
Church................... 32 ....... 51
Dinner................... 44 ....... 66
Afternoon program........ 37 ....... 62

I've been thinking about the programs for the reunion. Lee Swart has a beautiful autograph book of Louise Zeisset Swart. Lee, I was wondering if you could take some photographs of selected pages so that we could project those during our program portion. Digital photos are probably easiest, or you can scan regular photos, or whatever you think would be best. I have the copy of the black and whites, but you indicated that the colors are so beautiful that I thought we could project those. It would be costly to make lots of copies, so this way, we could share the pages with everyone (who attends). I was thinking that we would certainly want to include the pages of Margaretha and Jakob, and maybe some others. Paul, I assume you can put these together with a powerpoint. I thought I'd work that into Sunday's program.

There are two changes to the hotel announcement in the letter that went out last week. Most important, the reservation deadline is July 16, not one week later, as shown in the letter. The good news, though, is that Super 8 will honor the price quote I got in March--$57+tax--and not charge us the higher figure quoted in the letter. I will try to e-mail the people who indicated they planned to use the hotel in our winter questionnaire to make sure they know the correct due date.

Hi Paul and Loretta - We have made our reservations for August 13 - 15 in Manhattan at Super 8 - the price for August 13th (F) and 14th (S) is only $57.57, the night of August 15th (S) is the regular rate of $64.00 for 3 adults (Jeff and I are bringing my mom, Gladys Rowley). We're staying the extra night so we aren't traveling late - and can stay and help with the final clean up! We appreciate all of the planning that has gone into this get-together and we look forward to finally getting to meet you. We always enjoyed our visits with Merton and Ina - and look forward to visiting with your dad in August. ~ Debbie

Edited by author 02-05-2005 11:45 AM
As originally announced at the 2004 reunion last August, we have placed the descendant lists behind a password. These lists, originally from Merton Zeisset's book, have been updated sporadically by many of you. The original file names are still on the site, for anyone who has them bookmarked, but those files now go to the 2nd generation, not beyond. Only by entering the username and password do you now get to the original detail.

Adding password protection is perhaps inconvenient to all of us, but also potentially important now that identity theft is becoming more common. The fact that nearly all listings show date of birth and mother's maiden name suggests that anyone with Google can find out that information about each of us. Of course, there are lots of other sites out there that have been collecting similar information from voter registration and drivers license files, so there is still danger of identity theft. It just won't be caused by this site.

So give it a try: back at the main page, click on the link for your ancestor in the "Children" column. That takes you to a page that starts out like the old pages did, but instead of listing descendants of the 2nd generation it lists the number of children, which is linked to the password entry page. I will shortly be e-mailing usernames and passwords to the people on our e-mail list, along with a questionnaire on planning for the 2006 reunion.

If you see something that doesn't appear to work right or isn't easy to understand, let us know right away.

Edited by author 02-22-2005 07:57 AM
We regret to announce the passing of Merton Zeisset, February 18, 2005, at the Leonardville Nursing Home. His work helped keep interest in our family history alive for future generations.

For more on his life, or to sign a book of remembrances, see
http://home.earthlink.net/~zeisset/merton/.

Plans are now set for our 2006 Zeisset reunion to be held in Germany, August 1-10, 2006. We will have a chance to see firsthand the sites in Germany that Loretta Hoerman has been telling us about during the last several reunions--places our ancestors lived, worked, and worshiped. You can get complete details on the planned itinerary, as well as maps to show you all of the places, at our website zeissetgenealogy.n3.net.

The pricing came in better than we were expecting for an August date: $3135 per person (double occupancy) from Kansas City.

Incidentally, we selected the August date because there were several people able to attend that date who could not attend the alternative May date we proposed.

Within the next few weeks, everyone on our conventional mailing list will receive a brochure in the mail from TourMagination, a Canadian company specializing in Mennonite heritage tours. So watch the mail. Not everything coming will be junk or bills.

The Germany tour will include a chance to meet with some of our German relatives. Raphael Zeisset, a fellow descendant of our immigrants' great-grandparents, has volunteered to organize a gathering with some of his relatives on the Monday of our tour. For more information, see the itinerary at zeissetgenealogy.n3.net.

Greetings Zeisset relatives! I have been in touch with Wilmer Martin of Tourmagination for our Zeisset Family Tour. At this time, there are 21 of us who have committed financially to going on the trip. I know that there are more who are planning to go. I think that the brochure and information wasn't clear about a registration deadline, but I know that my payment schedule has the second installment due on the 15th of December. So I'm sending a prompt through the discussion board for those who haven't done so yet to sign up. I know it's early. As a procrastinator, all this advance planning is very diffucult for me!

I continue to passionately research our family. Paul will soon be posting the agricultural census data to the webpage now that I finally sent it to him. I have made a connection in Germany with a closer relative. Our great grandfather, Jakob, had three brothers: Isaak, Johannes and Daniel. Isaak was the godfather for Bettie and Henry and perhaps others of our immigrant siblings. I have contacted a greatgreatgreat-granddaughter of his and their family is very excited to hear from us. They have paintings by the same Zeisset artist that some of us have! We will likely be seeing them on our trip as well. I have new information about Jakob and Elizabeth Zeisset (that's Jake Zeisset who came to Kansas and Lizzie Zeisset Weller).

As you look over the itinerary, please let us know your thoughts, if there are other things you would like to include. Assuming that we'll have some Wellers on the trip, we are planning to go to Onolzheim, where George Weller was born. Time will not allow us to travel together to the Swart/Nanninga homes in northern Germany. The Dammhof, where the Baers lived for generations, is now a riding school and I'm hoping that we can arrange a visit there to see what a typical Hof (farm, courtyard) looked like...and maybe some will want to ride their beautiful horses? Another interesting stop, if we get it arranged, will be the Freilandsmuseum at Schwäbisch Hall. This is an open air museum where the buildings are set up as they were in the 1800s, with artisans exhibiting the skills used by our ancestors.

Enough from me...Let us hear from you!