Reilly Springs Hosts Memorial Day
Services, Sunday

 

by: Bobby McDonald

Like most every small community in Hopkins County with a rural cemetery, Reilly Springs hosted its annual Memorial Day Service, on Sunday, May 18th. A service began at 11:00 to honor those who have founded the community and to make note of those individuals who have been buried in the past year. A long-stemmed rose was presented to family members of the deceased.

The Welcome and Response was offered by those who lived in the community and those who have moved to other places. Each shared bits of history and remembrances of being reared in the community. This year's program involved a presentation by the Hopkins County Veteran's Memorial Committee, as they apprised everyone of how to have their loved ones included on the memorial. Keynote speaker was Kyle Wilkison, a history professor at Collin County College and a member of a multi-generational family of Reilly Springs.

 

Descendents of the founding fathers......left to right, Kyle Wilkison, Anthony McKay, Bobby McDonald,
and David Stribling represent their families who pioneered the Reilly Springs Community, by joining
a wagon train from Neshoba Co., Mississippi, in 1866-67.

 

 

Wilkison highlighted his own family's history in the community, as they joined a wagontrain led by Daniel N.C. McDonald, in 1866-67, that left Neshoba County, Mississippi and headed for a destination of Reilly Springs. The wagontrain included the McDonalds, Wilkisons, Striblings, Fosters, Gamblins, McKay's and other pioneer families. Decendents of these families still live in the community today and were in attendance at Sunday's service.

Multi-generational gathering, left to right, Randy Koon, Kody Koon holding Ayden Koon, represented
three generations of the McDonald Family of Reilly Springs, as did Chad Jones holding Jadi Jones,
while Judy McDonald Jones looks on.

 

In what most will surely agree is the highlight of the annual gathering at Reilly Springs, following the service everyone went to the Reilly Springs Community Center and enjoyed a "dinner-on-the-grounds." Food of every shape and description was spread over large wooden tables, from delicious chocolate cake to fried chicken, salads, red beans and cornbread,  to chicken and dressing and meatloaf.

Some 125 people attended and celebrated life in Reilly Springs, past and present, with visions toward the future, walking on the very grounds that whisper with the secrets of generations past.

 

Seven generations later, Ayden Koon, left, and Jadi Jones discuss the way things are in Reilly Springs, today. Their great-great-
great-great grandfather, Daniel N.C. McDonald and wife, Mary Anne McKay McDonald, led a wagontrain of kinsmen to
Reilly Springs in 1866-67, that were some of the founding families of the community.

 

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