Deere - 1900 -06
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 16 August 1901
The annual reunion of the Deer family was held at the Shades, near the old homestead, Wednesday, and was a pleasant occasion. Many things conspire to make the annual return of this day a pleasing anticipation and a grateful memory. Venerable Joel G. Deere and his worthy companion, Mary E., are among the oldest settlers of Montgomery County, and in their old age they not only enjoy the reward of the toil and sacrifice of early days, but also have the inspiring consciousness that the virtues of honest and industry which brought success to them find embodiment in their children.
In the family are a lawyer, a preacher, four farmers, two millers, a trader and a commission man and to come together once a year to rehearse their successes and failures and to spend a day in social and literary enjoyment is not less profitable than pleasant. For eleven years the family, forty five strong, has met in annual reunion, and until the last three years death never entered their ranks. With an increase of three they came together this year at the beautiful and popular summer resort known far and near as the “Shades,” and there participated in an excellent three course dinner served under the genial management of Mr. and Mrs. R. E. Moore, who are in charge of the hotel. Not until the sun was low in the west did the family go their separate ways, feeling that one of the best days they had ever spent together had passed to be recalled only in glad retrospect