Sixty years after graduation, class members of 1963 met Sept. 20 and 21 in Homestead, Iowa to see old friends and catch up on what has happened in our lives since last time we met. The setting for our first evening was the Welfare Club, where we greeted new arrivals and continued our visiting and eating for hours until we left for Kalona or Zubers Homestead Hotel.

After breakfast the next morning, a group led by Bette enjoyed a nature walk on the Amana Nature Trail near our hotel. We then met with Jeremy Ours from Hillcrest Academy for his presentation about changes in the current school year as well as answering our many questions.

Some of us continued the discussion with Jeremy over lunch at Millstone Brau Haus. Late afternoon we met at the Communal Kitchen Museum in Middle Amana where Elise from the Amana Heritage Society gave us a guided tour of the print shop, woodshed, and chicken house before touring the inside. As Elise talked about the history of communal life until 1932, we listened and mentally compared our own heritage with that of the Amana settlers.

We continued on to the communal kitchen where we sat at long wooden tables on wooden benches where our evening meal was served to us. The simple food was prepared from original recipes the settlers brought with them when immigrating.

We were back to the Welfare Club for our evening activities, beginning with a memory service led by Bette celebrating the lives of our 12 class members no longer with us. It was a poignant and moving reminder of the lives we had interacted with on a daily basis. The song “Lift your Glad Voices” was incorporated into the service.

Sixty years is a long time, and class members told stories of a time after graduation that affected their future lives. Many of us had not heard these stories before, such as Bob Yoder working in Nepal or Jay Brenneman working at Pioneer Village.

We finally dispersed late in the evening wishing we had more time to talk in depth with each other. We said our goodbyes with promises of seeing each other next time, maybe in three years?