Family reunion sees four generations coming together

The Harniess family, originally from Louth, met up at Louth Golf Club earlier this month, with an impressive 72 members and the youngest aged just four weeks old, the eldest 86.

The family has so many members as ​Herbert and Catherine Harniess started their family in 1931 with 13 children – eight boys and five girls.

The family first lived in a cottage off Little Eastgate, then in a three-bedroom terrace in Riverhead, and later in a larger four-bedroom house in St. Bernard’s Avenue.

Sleeping arrangements in the early years included, at times, four children sharing a bed!

Three of the surviving girls still live in Louth, and the fourth in Burnham-on-Sea, Essex while of the four surviving boys, one lives in Humberstone, one in Lincoln, one in London and one in Birmingham.

“Over the period of a year during 2022/23, we realised that the family had experienced “Four Funerals and a Wedding”, and the funerals especially meant that family members from far and wide met on these sad occasions,” Alan Harniess, Herbert and Catherine’s grandson explained, “Some of the cousins decided that we should organise a happier meet-up, rather in the spirit of those in our childhood years – hence the June 1 reunion. A real celebration of the legacy of Herbert and Catherine who successfully brought up a large family – we all get on and look out for each other.”

Present on the day of the reunion were six of the original 13 children of Herbert and Catherine, with 18 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.