2026 - 6 The Cousin Picture

Nolen Family Christmas — The One With All Ten First Cousins

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - My Maternal First Cousins 

Week 6 · February 5–11, 2026

Prompt: A Favorite Photo

Christmas Eve 1972. The Nolen extended family gathered at my Aunt Sue RoBards’s home in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, as was our tradition.

At the time, my brother Dave—the oldest of the cousins—was serving in the Air Force, stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. It was close enough that he, his young wife Bonnie, and their son Jason were able to come home for Christmas.

This is the only photograph we have with all ten first cousins together, and it’s the one family members ask for again and again. Everyone remembers it, but it isn’t always easy to find when someone suddenly wants to see it—so it has become the cousin picture.

In addition to the cousins named below, the photo also includes my grandparents, Leonard and Elizabeth Nolen; my great-uncle by marriage, Hank Harmon; my mother’s sisters Betty and Sue, along with Sue’s husband Paul; Aunt Phyllis (Uncle Sonny’s widow); Harlow Stillings, Betty’s neighbor; and Jackie Wall, my boyfriend at the time.

Christmas Eve 1972, Sand Springs, OK

Key to the Photo

1. Betty Nolen Grigsby – my mother’s sister

2. Dave Wallis – my brother

3. Peggy Grigsby

4. Jill Nolen

5. Paula RoBards

6. Hank Harmon – widowed husband of my great-aunt Anna 

7. Leonard Nolen – my grandfather

8. Paul RoBards – husband of my Aunt Sue

9. Harlow Stillings – Aunt Betty’s neighbor

10. Elizabeth Nolen – my grandmother

11. Libby Wallis

12. Jackie Wall – boyfriend

13. Jason Wallis – my nephew

14. Bonnie Wallis – my sister-in-law

15. Dog

16. Robbin RoBards

17. Sue Nolen RoBards – my mother’s sister

18. Mark Nolen

19. Storm Wallis – my brother

20. Julie Nolen

21. Margaret Nolen Wallis – my mother

22. Ralph Wallis – my father

23. Phyllis Lane Nolen – widow of my Uncle Sonny

24. Steve Nolen

Aunt Phyllis is now the only one left from her generation. We’ve lost just one of the first cousins—my brother Storm, who died in 2021.

Most of us are still in northeastern Oklahoma. Dave is in Corvallis, Oregon. Peggy lives in Tomball, Texas, but she makes it back to see her fellow Okies a couple of times a year.

This photo endures because it captures something that rarely happens all at once: everyone together, in one place, at one moment in time. Today, it stands as a shared memory of those no longer with us, and a reminder of the family we once were, gathered on a Christmas Eve long ago.

Note added after publication (from my brother Dave):

This photo was taken about six months after my return from a year-long tour of duty in Thailand. I had bought a 35mm Pentax camera overseas and set it up on a chair using the timed shutter. Then I rushed over to get into the picture—just as our “crazy” Aunt Betty grabbed me, which little Jason must have found hilarious. Jenny was born in August 1973, so my young wife Bonnie would have been about a month pregnant when the photo was taken.