Events
Fifth National Strother Conference
The Fifth National Strother Conference was held in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the host hotel was the Sheraton Inn & Conference Center. The Conference was a big success with 149 members and their families in attendance. Keynote speakers were Dr Edward Miller, Trustee of the Virginia Military Institute, and Dr Allan Williams, Professor at the University of Virginia. In addition to the Board and Business Meetings, the program included:
Genealogy Round Table Workshops on Thursday and Friday.
Strother Family Night on Thursday at the hotel, with Dr Miller's talk on "Life and Times of General David Hunter".
Conference Banquet on Friday evening at the hotel, with introduction of new officers and directors and Dr Williams talk on "In the Footsteps of Giants: Virginians 1820-1850".
Saturday tour to Montpelier, home of James and Dolly Madison, and Meadowfarm, ancestral home of the Taylor family. Included was a picnic on the lawn at Meadowfarm hosted by the Honorable Helen Marie Taylor.
Sunday provided an optional tour to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, and the old campus of the University of Virginia.
For more details on the activities at the 1994 Conference, minutes of the Business Meetings, and accompanying photographs, please check the October 1994 issue of the Houses of Strother Newsletter.
Fourth Strother Conference
The Fourth National Strother Conference was held in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the host hotel was the Fort Magruder Inn & Conference Center. Attendance was 157. The program included:
- Honored: Lloyd F. Oliver
- William O. Hubbard speaking on The Taylor Connection
- Lt. Col. William A. Strother reviewed Strother and Some Allied Lines by Richard E. Dodd
- Vincent Strother of Canada speaking on A "Yorkshire" Strother
- Margaret McClellan speaking on Colonial Dames
- The Honorable Helen Marie Taylor, owner of the Taylor ancestral home Meadow Farm, speaking on Zachary Taylor
Third Strother Conference
The Third National Strother Conference was held in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the host hotel was the Sheraton-Fredericksburg Resort & Conference Center. Attendance was 170. The program included:
- James "Jay" Harrison III, Archaeologist for the Millbank Survey and Dig, gave an interesting talk complete with artifacts that were discovered at Millbank. He also conducted tours to the dig areas on Saturday.
- A day-long bus tour on Saturday began with a stop at St. John’s Episcopal Church where we had communion from the Silver Communion Service used in the Old Strother Church.
- Next was a tour of Millbank, then a stop at Albion, the former house of Anthony Strother, where we walked through the original part of the house where Anthony and his family lived.
- Robert Siegrist, Director of Restoration of George Washington's Boyhood Home, Ferry Farm, conducted a guided tour to show what had been accomplished thus far.
- At the banquet, Dr Otho Campbell, Professor of History, Mary Washington College, spoke about “The Virginia Colony in the 18th Century: Its Growing and Maturing.”
Second Strother Conference - 1988
The Second Strother Conference was held in August 1988 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the host hotel was the Downtown Holiday Inn. With 50 or so members, families and guests attending, this conference focused on furthering efforts to establish a permanent society of William Strother descendants. The first officers were elected and copies of proposed by-laws and a constitution were handed out with a plan to vote on them at the next Conference. In addition to the business meeting, attendees enjoyed:
- a buffet dinner on Friday night followed by a presentation by Steve Meyers, Assistant Manager, Genealogy Department of the Allen County Library, on the genealogy materials available in the library.
- a bus tour of Fort Wayne, a walking tour of the old fort, and a river boat ride on the Three Rivers.
- a banquet on Saturday evening, followed by a presentation by Richard Ryan Strother, from Washington, DC, on David Hunter Strother, a Civil War officer, author and illustrator. Richard was a great grandson of David Hunter Strother.
For more details on the activities at the1988 Conference, please check the Third Quarter 1988 issue of TheStrother Newsletter.
First Strother Family Reunion - 1986
The First Strother Family Reunion was held on September 5-7,1986, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The host hotel was the Sheraton- Fredericksburg Resort & Conference Center. From all across the country, 190 people attended this ground-breaking event to meet cousins, learn more about the Strother Family, and visit historical sites in the Fredericksburg area that are part of the Strother heritage. No definite organizational structure or plans for future events came out of this reunion, but the seed was planted and many attendees expressed interest in future reunions. The program, a copy of which is included here, covered different activities to interest everyone:
- a get-acquainted period and cookout on Friday evening.
- a Seminar on the Strother Family, led by George Fenwick, one of the organizers of the reunion.
- optional tours on Saturday and Sunday to prominent local sites, including Millbank, City of Fredericksburg, Kenmore Manor, Mary Washington House, and Chatham Manor.
- a banquet at the hotel on Saturday evening followed by speakers Dr. Otho Campbell, Associate Professor of History at Mary Washington College, subject: "Virginia: It's Early Settlers and Their Hardships"; and John Frederick Dorman, Editor of THE VIRGINIA GENEALOGIST, subject: "The Law and Genealogy".
- a business meeting on Sunday morning.
For more information on the activities of the weekend, some later plans for a second reunion, and several people who volunteered for various functions, please check the January 1987 newsletter, the first for the Strother Family.