Life with Ten Children

This post is in honor of my in laws, Muriel and Joseph who I loved dearly as my set of second parents. Muriel and Joe had ten children. Yes, my, my, I did say 10! There are some amazing, hilarious, and tear-jerking moments in life when a couple co-habitates for over 55 years and births 10 children.

Both of my in laws have gone home to be with the Lord. My mother-in-law passing over 3 years ago, whereas, father-in-law just recently died.

Both of these people have been a part of my life since I was 22 years old and I'm now a few weeks shy of my 48th birthday....I'll let you do the math. I've been their daughter-in-law for over 23 years and they had a huge impact on me for all of those 23 years.

One of the most amazing instances that I've ever experienced was the day of FIL's funeral. Okay, the man was 86 years old, the father of 10 children, 33 grandchildren, and gee, sorry, not so sure how many great grandchildren--I think the number is 11, but don't quote me on that one. (It's kind of silly to be at a family get-together and it takes you the better portion of the gathering to figure out what that grand-niece's name is. But, yeah, that happens to all of us great aunts, cause I asked the others to assure myself I wasn't a looney for forgetting).

Most of Joe's friends and siblings have passed away. He has 2 surviving brothers of 8 brothers. Yes, large families abound! Of the two surviving brothers, only one was able to attend the funeral.

So, the funeral director stand ups in front of a rather large room chucked full of people (around 70 - 75 people were present) and gives a short re-cap of Joe's life. Before leaving for the church services, he directed the seated individuals to come forward and pay their last respects to Joe at the front of the funeral parlor where Joe's casket was located. He announced that friends and/or acquaintances were welcome to come up first...........Amazing thing! Only 2 people rose and proceeded to approach the casket!

Next, the director indicated that all family members excluding children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, such as, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces etc. could proceed forward. Four people stood up and made their way to the front of the funeral parlor.

I was sitting very close to the director at this point. His eyes got huge, he broke out in a huge grin and I heard him mumble under his breath, "Good Lord, this room is full of children and grandchildren to one man!" Yes, amazing, but true! I'm sure he's done hundreds, maybe even thousands of funerals in his time, but even he was amazed!

Growing up with 10 children in the house can breed hundreds and hundreds of funny stories. One of the cutest things that my SIL always says is this, "Stress? You want to talk stress? Try growing up in a house with 10 children and only 1 bathroom! Now, that's stress!" I imagine that it is stressful. She told me many a rolls of toilet paper went down the lane to the woods during her childhood.

Speaking of toilet paper...try to imagine how many rolls of toilet paper are consumed by 10 children! Or how 'bout milk, eggs, meat, shampoo, soap, etc. I bet it's a cart load. In fact, hubby told me that while he was growing up, either his brother or he himself drove their mother to go get groceries every week. She could drive, she just needed a helper for grocery shopping each week. She would fill 2 cart loads every week, but she didn't put certain items in the cart, because there was a lot of things that they produced themselves, such as eggs, milk, meat, garden vegetables.

Have you ever seen a 3 acre garden for one family? I have! I heard many a grumbling and a mumbling through the years when Muriel would rise in the morning and say, "Okay, today....we weed the garden!" It really was a whole day job with several little hands helping.

At the funeral, my niece (who is one beautiful gal, by the way) read the eulogy. There were a good 10 minutes where the crowd in the church were running the gambit on emotions. One moment everyone was laughing, another moment they were all wiping the tears from their face. She told of one incident for each of the 10 children. Now, me being married to the second oldest, I had actually seen or experienced or heard about almost all of these incidents, but the grandkids were all gathered after the funeral asking, "Which one did this? Which one did that?"

For example, my BIL came home for lunch from his job. He entered his house (he was married by then), ate lunch, then got back into his car to return to work. He had his door open to back up the car out of the driveway. Funny, I don't see a lot of people do that anymore. While being a kid, it just seemed like everyone opened their car door and peered out behind them to see where the car was going while backing up. Well, apparently, a telephone pole was out of his limited line of vision and he snapped the door right off the hinges of his car.

Now, that might not seem funny, but we all agreed that it was hilarious, because if you knew my BIL, T, what he did next was just so like him. He got out, yelled into his wife what time it was, she replied and realizing he didn't have a minute to spare, he picked up the car door shoved it into the back seat and drove back to work without a car door. I guess growing up in a household of 10 children somehow numbs our reactions to things that others would be devastated about! That can be a good quality, I think!

Then the next story is about hubby! You see, my Billy just doesn't always worry about what we women consider important. Etiquette is not one of his finer points. I've come to expect this from him in the 23 years of being married to him, but he even found a moment where he mortified his own mother with his lack of concern for finer things. This occasion arose when he graduated from college. Hubby had an old ratty pair of white (probably grayish actually from the wear and tear of being a college student) sneakers that he wore every day at college. He really didn't need any other shoes than those ratty old sneakers, because he hardly ever left campus.

So......for graduation, he did realize that those ratty old sneakers were not going to work. He did have one pair of football cleats in his closet that were black. So, he wore them to graduation. You can imagine my especially fine mother in law's reaction to that one. She actually told me later that she was mortified to realize that is what he graduated from college with on his feet. LOL! His statement was and always will be, "But they were black! They looked nice!"

Then there is the story how my sister in law, C, was admired and pursued by a boy her age. C didn't have the same feelings that this boy had for her. She was, well, for lack of a better term, she was mortified. C would high tale it up to the woods every time she saw this love struck fellow heading for their house. He'd pull in the driveway and apparently, C would head for the woods. Well, hubby told me he didn't think this boy was dealing with a full deck of cards or that he was so blinded by his admiration for C that he just didn't 'get it', because day after day after day he would come to the house and he never did suspect that C purposely would vacate the premises upon his arrival. I guess the family laughed about that one for years. C is a rather sneaky person from time to time, now I know why!

Then, there's the story of D. D's story is a real tear jerker. D was the baby that Muriel had after having a stillborn baby a few years before. The doctor had told her she would and never should have any more children. (I guess they proved that old doc wrong as Muriel went on to have 7 more children). Anyway, D was very special in his parents' and family's eyes. He was the first baby delivered, when Muriel was never to have any more.

The family has many stories about D. He was the one child that they could always depend on to start a fist fight with any or all of his 7 brothers at any given time It was usually when they were grown that he would return to Texas, where he lived, and bragged real hard about which of the brothers he challenged. Now, I know that some of you would think he was a nasty, mean hearted young man. But, D was just the opposite. He was one of the most kindest, sweetest and tenderhearted young men I've ever known. He would feed you his last morsel, he would give you the shirt off his back...just don't make him mad.

It was a family joke when he got into those arguments and fights and oftentimes it had gotten to the point where everyone was slapping each other on the back and kidding around about 5 minutes after D had pulled out the fists and duked it out with someone. I slowly began to realize that this was just one of those aspects of a large family. It was actually the brother that D felt most affectionate towards that he would pick a fight with.

Tragically, D was killed in an industrial accident where he worked and was put to rest at the tender age of 26. One thing my mother in law expressed after D's death was that people would suggest that through time things would get better for the family in accepting D's death. She once told me that it never got better, it just got different.

D died right before the 4th of July in 1984. My mother in law died the day after exactly 20 years later. The day of D's 20th anniversary of his death, she told my SIL that D had been in her thoughts a lot and she was looking forward to meeting him again in heaven. SIL told me that she thinks MIL knew it was the anniversary, even though MIL had severe dementia and at times didn't even know what day of the week it was. Many times in her clouded mind, D was still alive.

My SIL, M is a gal that would do anything and everything for family! She goes above and beyond the normal call of duty when it concerns her loved ones. M was the daughter who quit her job when both her parents took ill and she cared for them many years in my in laws' home. Her goal was to let her parents die in peace at home and they did, thanks, to M. May God bless M for all the devotion and loving care she gave her parents while they were in their latter years. M was the one who would get up in the middle of the night and travel to my in laws home when FIL was running a fever or MIL was unresponsive. She was the first one called and she always took care of whatever needed to be done.

J, my BIL is exactly 10 years and 1 day younger than my hubby. J's birthday was somewhat planned for May 25th, because Muriel refused to let the doctor induce labor on Billy's (my husband) birthday, which was May 24th. She said when you're one of so many children, you needed your own day. J's day would be the day after hubby's day. She was adament and the doctor did grant Muriel her desire, so J was born 10 years and 1 day after my husband was. My husband has stated this sacrifice that his dear, sweet mother made every year when his birthday rolls around. J is also the only sibling that hubby can remember his birthday. Imagine that!

J had one incident that happened when he was a wiseacker teenager of about 15 years old. One day, the boys were down by the pond doing this or that (not sure what they were doing). A steer that the family had raised for meat was impeding his space down there by the pond, so J picked up a rock the size of a baseball and said, "Watch this!" Now, J tells the story that in a million and one years, he never thought he would hit that cow. So, he flung that rock for all he was worth a rather long distance and hit that cow square between the eyes. The steer immediately without a moment's hesitation dropped to the ground and was dead instantly.

Well, you can imagine that J was frantic. Here is this prize steer that the family planned on butchering in the fall to put in the freezer to help feed the family that winter. There it lie, dead as a doornail from a rock he'd thrown! J said he couldn't have hit that cow so perfectly ever again in his entire lifetime.

They did butcher the steer and put him in the freezer for the winter, but hubby recalls getting a phone call (as he was living on his own nearby) asking him to come help butcher this cow. See, the family normally took the steer to the hacket guy and he would kill the steer, then cut it up and package it for the family. They would pick the meat up at a later appointed time and bring it home to put into the freezer. Only thing with this little guy was that he was already dead. Hacket men will not take dead animals to butcher for people. It's a law or something. So hubby said every single hand in the household had to help with cutting up that steer for the freezer. He said it took until the wee hours of the morning to do it.

Guess what? None of the other children had to go to school the next day due to lack of sleep EXCEPT J. Muriel put him on that bus draggin' his wheels the next morning. She said, "It served him right." Now, farm children have this great summer pastime when they are bored; they throw rocks at cows, but I can tell you that J said he NEVER, EVER threw another rock at another cow to this day!

Dear BIL M is probably one of the most responsible, level-headed guys that you'll ever meet. That's why when MIL told me the all time favorite story for M, I thought it was pretty funny, because it sounds so out of character for him. One Halloween evening, Muriel was in the house fixing dinner for her large and growing family. (Can you believe, I once ate at their house when all those boys were little and Muriel cooked over 50 hamburgers? Cooking dinner for all those people was a part time job in itself).

Well, Muriel was cooking the family dinner, when all of sudden there was a loud and angry knock on the door. Muriel runs to the door to see a man with what appeared to be tomato on his face. Now, when Muriel opened the door, being that they lived out in the country, they usually didn't have too many people knockin' on their door that they weren't expecting beforehand. So, Muriel opens the door to this strange man with tomato on his face and along with her at the door when she opened it was the whole passel of little children who were in the house. The only one missing was M, which she hadn't noticed yet!

The man was furious and said that one of her children must have been up in the old oak tree throwing tomatoes at the passing cars and one entered his car through his rolled down window right smack dab into his face. Muriel said (she hadn't taken a head count), "All my children are right here with me." The man shook his head, apologized, then went on his way.

Muriel wheeled around after shutting the door, took a head count and realized that M was no where to be seen. You got it, he was up in the old oak tree whippin' tomaters! Muriel said that boy couldn't sit down for a whole week when she got through wearin' him out.

Now, BIL 'A' is the daredevil of the family. I've seen 'A' dared to do just about anything and he would do it. He never cried much as a little boy. He was tough as nails. The only really bad thing about 'A' was that he didn't always use a lot of common sense. Being a daredevil and not having a lot of common sense can be a dangerous thing.

One day, 'A' was dared to go into the bee hive and scare the bees. Well, off ran 'A' smack dab into the middle of the bee hive and scared those durn bees. He's scared them so bad that one came out and stung him twice. That bee stung him right under each eye on his cheeks. 'A's' cheeks swelled up to an enormous size that evening and Muriel took pictures. They had an album of pictures of the kids as they were growing up and 'A' looks like a huge chipmunck in the pictures she took after the bee stings. You know what? 'A' never went near that bee hive again.

The bee hive sat in the corner of the fruit tree orchard that the family owned. They mowed the property throughout the orchard and next to the bee hive. When it was 'A's' turn to mow the 4 acres of lawn, he always neglected to mow near the bee hive. I guess he did get a little common sense about that one.

G was the second youngest child. As a toddler, G never had any conception of where his actions would take him. Muriel and Joe would laugh (I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time) that G had pulled the Christmas tree, the TV set and the curio down right on top of himself all in one night. The family could barely get the destruction cleared up before he was pulling some other object down onto the floor. I guess he was a pretty strong little bugger, too, from the sounds of it. Well, M (the youngest daughter) was told, "Watch G, and don't let him out of your sight."

M says that she never had only one little guy to watch over (she usually had several to watch over), so she decided that this would be a good opportunity to watch "Happy Days" and the Fonze on TV. She said her parents didn't allow her to watch the show. They thought it was a bad influence, but they were so busy putting this and that together from G's tirade, she thought she'd sneak a peak!

About 15 minutes later, a man knocked on the door with G in his arms. He told Muriel and Joe that he found him wandering down the highway all by his lonesome. Okay, I know, I know, I don't think M could sit down for a whole week either after that one. She said to this day she just can't stomach watching "Happy Days."

The youngest child, GV, always got the worst ribbing and kidding of any of the children. After all, he was the youngest. GV was around 5 years old and his nightly chore was to feed the dogs in the barn. Now the pathway from the house to the barn was very well lit when the porch light was lit. So, GV would always fill up the pail full of dog food and proceed to casually walk to the barn, so he could fill their bowls. D (remember he's the fist fighter of the family) would quietly sneak over to the porch light switch and turn it off just as GV got to the door of the barn. GV was always scared out of his wits! He would throw the whole pail of dog food into the barn, never mind finding the bowls, because the boogey man for sure lived in the barn. He would get to the porch door and D would tell him, "You threw that dog food willy nilly into the barn, now you go fill that bucket and do it right this time." Well, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this nightly occurrence was very traumatic for a 5 year old. Over and over and over again GV would travel to the barn door, out the light would go, he'd throw the food through the barn door, return to the house and D would tell him to do it again right this time. LOL! GV always tells this story with much love and affection for his brother D, especially since D is no longer with us.


Life with 10 children is pretty interesting. I can remember hundreds of other stories and tales that the family have shared through the years, but these were the particular ones that my niece dictated at the funeral service.

It was a time for laughter, a time for tears, and a time of remembering.