Mason

Many years ago my wife and I bought fourteen acres just north of the Llano River on Mulberry Creek in Mason County. The property is about five miles upstream from Castell, TX. Over the years we have used the property as our Home Base for exploring the beautiful Texas Hill Country. For at least thirty-five years we have also hosted an extended family campout over the Easter weekend. The campout began as a rendezvous between my family and my West Texas Kirk/Boswell cousins from Gorman, DeLeon, Dublin, Comanche, and surrounding communities. My mother grew up near DeLeon but several of her brothers and sisters remained in the area. My mother’s younger sister, Mary (Boswell) Kirk had six children, and my brother and I have always felt a special relationship to them. Cousin Sarah (Kirk) Bays and her husband Pat and children are charter members & co-hosts to the annual campout. Over the years the campout has grown to include the van Bavel brothers and sisters of my wife Paulina and their families. David and Holly Hollingsworth, though not immediate family, have also always been a part of the campout from the beginning. Other family friends have joined in over the years. We have many wonderful memories of these get-togethers. We watched our children get to know their cousins, and now their children are doing the same. The campout has thus kept alive old friendships and reinforced family bonds over several generations, and bonds such as these grow in meaning with time. May the tradition continue!