How sweet it was!
Candy, dancing highlight Old Settlers homecoming
Staff writer
Old Settlers Day bounced back from COVID-19 Saturday, providing a bounty of candy for kids and alcohol for adults.
Marion faithful meandered down Main St. Pros set up lawn chairs of all sizes hours before the parade started at 11 a.m.
Yellow and green children’s lawn chairs particularly stood out.
Music ranged from marching to melancholic.
“I thought there was a better crowd than there was last year,” Marsha Childs Postar, a 1967 Marion graduate, said.
That said, she misses the glory days of Old Settlers Day.
“The parade was bigger, but in years past, there would be rows and rows of people in front of the stage,” she said. “So many older people, they eat and then they just go home.”
Her class has lost seven classmates since its reunion five years ago and 15 since 1967.
Norma Kline thinks she’s attended Old Settlers Day for 64 years.
“I presume since 1958,” she said. “That’s when we moved to Marion.”
Kline and her husband, Jerry, settled in shade to watch the marching band and other activities.
They and their friends reminisced, caught up, and smiled at kids running around.
“We were happy with it,” she said of her class’s reunion. “Three of the ones that always come were tied up — two of them in Europe and the other one couldn’t get out of her hometown. We had a wonderful time, wonderful time. We always do. We like each other.”
It gets more difficult each year to remember how many students were in the class.
“We think it was 44,” she said.
Thirty-one are still living.