Big Families

I may have shown this picture on the blog before, I'm not sure. I absolutely love it though. This is a picture of my mom and her family. She is the baby my grandmother is holding. Believe it or not, there would be one more baby coming for this family, bringing the grand total to nine children. I am always in awe when I look at pictures of my grandma, a very willowy, delicately boned woman. How she managed to carry nine children is beyond me. I think being one of four children is good enough to qualify as having a big family, so I can't imagine having eight other people to talk to. I'm sure it was never quiet at my mom's house growing up. I know there were at least three to four to a bedroom and the line to use the only bathroom was a mile long every morning. I've heard stories of how my grandpa would take a carton of ice cream and actually cut it into eleven pieces. Nothing lasted very long at the house. I do know that it was never lonely, and never quiet. It was a childhood that could never be classified as average or boring. A family like this would be considered very strange in todays world, but in the '40s and '50s it wasn't too strange. I like the fact that my mom had an interesting family life, and I know she wouldn't trade it.