Reunions

A collection of the experiences of men and women who have communicated with the dead using the easy-to-learn techniques developed by Dr. Raymond Moody. As proof of life after death, these stunning testimonials promise to launch even more research and give comfort to people around the world.

This book is unique. Chris has spent the last few years tracking down hundreds of the amazing people he photographed in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Some were easy, some were hard, some were impossible to find. When he was successful, Chris arranged a reunion at the location of the original photograph and took another picture. This book is an incredible collection of those pairs of photographs with text from writer Jo Riley telling the stories of the people in the photos.

Reunions is a story about three people, two men and one woman, who graduate from the same high school in Florida in the 1950s. They go their separate ways, then are reunited for three events – two class reunions and a funeral. The two men do well in life because they are highly educated and know where prosperity lies. The woman is not so fortunate – she ends up in a bad marriage and is forced to separate herself and her children from an angry spouse. One man, the narrator, considers her a victim of society and tries to help her through life. The other man shuns her seeing her as a danger to society, an opportunist, and a traitor to family values. The men clash at two class reunions, defending their ideologies and concepts about what is right in mainstream America and what is wrong. Their politics diverge significantly. The third time the three meet is at the funeral of the son of one. This is a reflection of life as we know it at the end of the Twentieth Century.

Dr. Ione Vargus has long been convinced of the value of family reunions, especially among black families. For quite a few years, she traveled around the country to visit various black family reunions to observe what families did. She interviewed various members of those families as well. The result is this book, which delves into the social and psychological benefits of having reunions, as well as some advice and guidance on the nuts and bolts of planning and holding a reunion.

Winner of the 2019 Scott Bill Memorial Prize for Outstanding First Book in Peace History Memory, Reconciliation, and Reunions in South Korea: Crossing the Divide explores the history and tells the story of the emotionally charged meetings that took place among family members who, after having lost all contact for over fifty years on opposite sides of the Korean divide, were temporarily reunited in a series of events beginning in 2000. During an unprecedented period of reconciliation between North and South Korea, those nationally televised reunions would prove to be the largest meetings held theretofore among civilians from the two states since the inter-Korean border was sealed following the end of active hostilities in 1953. Drawing on field research during the reunions as they happened, oral histories with family members who participated, interviews among government officials involved in the events’ negotiation and planning, and observations of breakthrough developments at the turn of the millennium, this book narrates a grounded history of these pivotal events. The book further explores the implications of such intimate family encounters for the larger political and cultural processes of moving from a disposition of enmity to one of recognition and engagement through attempts at achieving sustained reconciliation amid the complex legacies of civil war and the global Cold War on the Korean Peninsula.

For nearly a half-century, Las Vegas, New Mexico, held "Wild West" adventures rivaling Cheyenne's Frontier Days, the Calgary Stampede, and Oregon's Pendleton Round Up. The San Miguel County seat annually hosted full-dress cowpunchers, Native Americans, ranchers, dance bands, artists and writers, moviemakers, and rodeo performers. The Las Vegas Cowboys' Reunion became legendary in western lore, drawing such ten-gallon names as Tom Mix, Jim Shoulders, Montana Belle, Prairie Rose Henderson, and Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Dick Bills and his nephew, Glen Campbell, played at the "Big Balls," and the reunions drew famous western artists, such as Randall Davey. Join author Pat Romero for these reunion tales based on Git Fer Vegas, Cowboy , the exhibit she curated at the City of Las Vegas Museum and Rough Rider Memorial Collection.

The book describes the experiences that people have had when tracing their birth parents, as well as offering practical advice on how to go about searching and what to expect emotionally. Each section has an advice box which summarizes key points, notes issues to pay particular attention to, or offers draft letters that readers can adapt for their own needs. The appendix contains useful addresses and weblinks, and includes checklists for searching and for the reunion. Chapters include reunion with birth fathers and birth siblings, as well as with birth mothers, the relationship with the adoptive family and dealing with reunions that break down.