# Amazing Family!



## Ken N Tx (Mar 29, 2022)

Back in the 1970's we new this couple who had 16 children 
(all single births no twins!) After we moved, we lost track of them.

We saw an obituary for the woman in 2012. She died at the age of 87.

She had *16* children, *61* grandchildren, *58* great grand children and *5* great great grand children!! 

R.I.P.!!!!!!


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## Pinky (Mar 29, 2022)

It's nice that she lived to be old enough to enjoy her grand/great-grand & great-great-grand children.
I'd love to see a family photo!


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## Alligatorob (Mar 29, 2022)

Impressive!  Large families are common here amongst the Mormons, but 16 is a lot.

No where near the record, Valentina Vassilyev gave birth to 69 children – sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...assilyev and her husband,a total of 27 births.

Hard to imagine...


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## hollydolly (Mar 29, 2022)

Ken N Tx said:


> Back in the 1970's we new this couple who had 16 children
> (all single births no twins!) After we moved, we lost track of them.
> 
> We saw an obituary for the woman in 2012. She died at the age of 87.
> ...


that's not a family that's a village .... Just think all those 58 grandchildren if they marry, they will become 118.. and then if they all have 2 children each or worse , follow in their grandparents footsteps..... those 58 grandchildren will become a small town....


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## horseless carriage (Mar 29, 2022)

Maria, a devout Catholic, got married and had 15 children. After her first husband died, she remarried and had 15 more children. A few weeks after her second husband died, Maria also passed away. At Maria's funeral, the priest looked skyward and said, "At last, they're finally together." Her sister sitting in the front row said, "Excuse me, Father, but do you mean she and her first husband, or she and her second husband?" The priest replied, "I mean her legs."


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## mrstime (Mar 29, 2022)

hollydolly said:


> that's not a family that's a village .... Just think all those 58 grandchildren if they marry, they will become 118.. and then if they all have 2 children each or worse , follow in their grandparents footsteps..... those 58 grandchildren will become a small town....


She was 87 in 2012, so I kind of understand. We married in 1957 in our early 80's now. However in our first 5 years we had 4 kids. We didn't intend to do that, it just happened. I always say we had our kids BP (before the pill). The pill was being tested on women in India. After the 4th DH got a vasectomy, if he hadn't we could easily have had at least 16 maybe more!


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## hollydolly (Mar 29, 2022)

mrstime said:


> She was 87 in 2012, so I kind of understand. We married in 1957 in our early 80's now. However in our first 5 years we had 4 kids. We didn't intend to do that, it just happened. I always say we had our kids BP (before the pill). The pill was being tested on women in India. After the 4th DH got a vasectomy, if he hadn't we could easily have had at least 16 maybe more!


My mum and dad were married in 1955 ,..they had 4 kids,... they didn't go on to have 16 kids.. because they used birth control which is what most people used...


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## Alligatorob (Mar 29, 2022)

hollydolly said:


> that's not a family that's a village ....


Genghis Khan has as many as 40,000,000 living descendants today.  Probably including some of the member here.  

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan


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## hollydolly (Mar 29, 2022)

Alligatorob said:


> Genghis Khan has as many as 40,000,000 living descendants today.  Probably including some of the member here.
> 
> https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan


yes we could go back to the Romans here, and the Anglo saxons and find  thousands related here


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## Murrmurr (Mar 29, 2022)

My dad was one of 11 kids, and mom was one of 9. I'm one of 5.

Ken, if my math worked, the mother of 16 started having kids around the 1930s, well before birth control pills and not too long after the US's high mortality rates among babies and young children declined.


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## hollydolly (Mar 29, 2022)

Murrmurr said:


> My dad was one of 11 kids, and mom was one of 9. I'm one of 5.
> 
> Ken, if my math worked, the mother of 16 started having kids around the 1930s, well before birth control pills and not too long after the US's high mortality rates among babies and young children declined.


My father was one of 16.. my mother was one of 9... but this was in the 20's and 30's.. when there was a high rate of infant mortality....1/2 of my fathers siblings died in infancy ...


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## horseless carriage (Mar 29, 2022)

mrstime said:


> After the 4th DH got a vasectomy, if he hadn't we could easily have had at least 16 maybe more!


When I had the snip my wife declared that they took too much off!


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## Ken N Tx (Mar 30, 2022)

Murrmurr said:


> My dad was one of 11 kids, and mom was one of 9. I'm one of 5.
> 
> Ken, if my math worked, the mother of 16 started having kids around the 1930s, well before birth control pills and not too long after the US's high mortality rates among babies and young children declined.


They were married in 1953..


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## Gary O' (Mar 30, 2022)

Alligatorob said:


> Genghis Khan has as many as 40,000,000 living descendants today. Probably including some of the member here.


Yup


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## Pappy (Mar 30, 2022)

My wife is one of 15 children. There were 9 girls and 6 boys. Her father was a farmer, worked in a factory and drove school bus. Must have been a lot of cold nights in Oxford, NY. The last five were born in a hospital. The rest at home. She’s the blond peeking out where the green line is:


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## Murrmurr (Mar 30, 2022)

Ken N Tx said:


> They were married in 1953..


Oh. Her age and the 5 great-g-kids threw me off. And I really shouldn't attempt math.


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## Sassycakes (Apr 28, 2022)

I don't know how hard it must be to raise a lot of children. In my Mom's family her Mom had 11 kids.5 boys and 6 girls. 3 of my Moms brothers married more than one time. I had 80 cousins. Out of all the girl cousins, only me and one other girl had blue eyes but many of my boy cousins had blue eyes.
My Dad's family consisted of 2 boys and 5 girls.No one in his family had blue eyes.


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## Murrmurr (Apr 28, 2022)

Sassycakes said:


> I don't know how hard it must be to raise a lot of children. In my Mom's family her Mom had 11 kids.5 boys and 6 girls. 3 of my Moms brothers married more than one time. I had 80 cousins. Out of all the girl cousins, only me and one other girl had blue eyes but many of my boy cousins had blue eyes.
> My Dad's family consisted of 2 boys and 5 girls.No one in his family had blue eyes.


I don't think I speak for only my family - back then, mothers were home all day, and the older girls helped mom take care of the kids, cook, wash clothes, etc, and she helped mom teach her younger sisters to sew and knit and all that. Meanwhile, the boys helped dad fix cars and appliances, and in my case, take care of cattle, mend fences, and other dairy-farm stuff.

Plus, there wasn't any reliable birth control. My parents were different religions, but both their religions discouraged birth control anyway. And also, just a decade or so before our moms were born, no one could be sure some of their kids wouldn't die of an illness or infection.

This reminds me of a meme that went around for a while; a picture of the rear window of an SUV that had one of those happy family stickers on it with a dad, a mom, and something like half a dozen kids, and someone wrote with their finger in the dirt on the window, "Good grief, get OFF that poor woman!" (i'd have added, "use the free time to wash this filthy car")


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## fuzzybuddy (May 5, 2022)

Religion aside, today, huge families seem rare. When I hear of 10+ kids, all I can think of is the poor woman has been pregnant since she was 18. My grandparents had 10 kids. Today, none of their descendants have more than 3.


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## jujube (May 5, 2022)

My late husband was #9 of 11, ranging over 25 years.  He was born in the hospital parking lot.

One of his oldest sisters told me that she graduated from high school, but hardly ever attended, as she had to stay home and take care of the younger kids (his mother had a harder pregnancy with each child).  She said the nuns would send homework home for her to do if she could and would just pass her in each class.  I think that was life for a lot of oldest sisters in huge families.

We started out wanting six, then four, then two.  The Good Lord apparently thought one was enough for us.


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## OneEyedDiva (May 5, 2022)

Well, I think my husband had her beat with the amount of grandchildren he had (all were my step grands) before he passed at age 73. We actually lost count after there were 65. I don't know how many great grands we had but I don't think it's nearly as much as the couple you wrote about. I can't even *imagine* giving birth 16 times!! Hell...I stopped at one.


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