November | 2023 | Robbins Roots

On Saturday, July 20^th, 2024, by popular demand, there will be another Robbins Reunion in Oregon. Meeting again at Feyrer County Park just outside of Molalla, Oregon, this reunion is open to anyone related to the Robbins family who would like to come and visit and share family history.

This past summer’s very successful reunion was meant to be a “one-off”, a chance to report on the 2022 bicentennial reunion in Decatur County, Indiana, but the attendees all said they’d like to resume the former annual Oregon reunions, so here we go!

The park is located about 3 miles east of Molalla on S. Feyrer Park Road. From downtown Molalla take E. Main Street to E. Mathias Road, travel south on that road a couple of blocks, and then turn east on S. Feyrer. That road takes you to the park. Picnic #2 is once again where the Robbins family will be gathering. Be aware that there is an $8 parking fee. Molalla is about 15 miles east of Interstate-5 at Woodburn or 16 miles south of 99E at Oregon City.

Even if you cannot come to this reunion, it would help if anyone reading this blog could pass along the word to anyone they think might be interested. Getting word out is the key to a successful reunion.

I plan to have limited updates about the reunion in this blog; there will be a Facebook event page for anyone who would like to follow the reunion there (you can always “friend” me for an invite); and I have created an email mailing list. If you would like to be included on the email list be sure to let me know by sending a message to: oregonrobbinsreunion@gmail.com

At last summer’s Robbins reunion cousin Sherrill Beck (a Jacob Robbins descendant) handed me an envelope containing some old calling cards. I didn’t have time to really study them until recently. What is interesting is that the cards all come from the Theodoshia (Robbins) Herren branch of the family – Theodoshia being a first-cousin to Sherrill’s Jacob. Obviously there were either visitations back and forth between the younger members of the family or they included them in letters they wrote each other. The Herrens and the Jacob Robbins family had a close relationship: I’ve previously written of William J. Herrens’ unsuccessful attempt to entice his cousin Jacob in accompanying him in a return visit to Decatur County, Indiana, in 1877.

According to a Wikipedia article on visiting or calling cards, by the 19th century, men and women needed personalized cars to maintain their social status. Cards were left at homes, sent to individuals, or exchanged in person for various social purposes. They became an indispensable tool of etiquette.

Another website quoted an etiquette book from 1882: “Callers should always be provided with cards. A gentleman should carry them loose in a convenient pocket; but a lady may use a card case. No matter how many members of the family you call upon, you send in but one card. Where servants are not kept, and you are met at the door by the lady herself, of course there is no use for a card. If you call upon a friend who has a visitor, send in but one card; but if they are not at home, leave a card for each. Calls of pure ceremony are sometimes made by simply handing in a card.”

The etiquette on the Oregon frontier and among family members may have been less formalized as I’m not sure close relatives needed to follow the formality of the very detailed social rules and conventions. But I’m sure it was a good way for young people, in particular, to share their calling “availability” to others or to simply exchange cards with each other, either in person or by mail.

What’s particularly interesting about these calling cards is that I can date most of them to the early 1880s because we know Docia (Robbins) Herren died in 1881, several of the cards belonged to three siblings who died of diphtheria in June of 1883, and Ida Herren was married in 1884.

Here is a list of the relatives with calling cards.