52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
2019
Week 11
Prompt – Large Family
Statistics tell us that families are
getting smaller. In the Canadian prairie provinces that is on
average 3 children per family. I don't need statistics to tell me
this. I came from a family of 7 children (actually 9 – but 2 were
stillborn).
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| 1962 - May : Rob, Dennis, Don, Betty, Diane, Bonnie (to left of Betty) and Me - Wendy |
Bill and I had 2 children. My generation was at the
beginning of birth control availability and therefore the size of a
family was definitely personal choice. Our ancestors did not have
this choice.
I am going to follow my father's (Peters) ancestral line.
There is an error in this GRANDMA
edition. My grandparents Franz and Elisabeth had 11 children. They
have Katharina and Shirley as two separated women and therefor twins.
There is only Shirley who was also known as Katie. My siblings that
I have spoke to about this have concurred with me that there were no
twins born to Franz and Elisabeth. David born in 1906 and Jacob born
in September, 1911 both died at a young age. And as mentioned before it is
truly a Mennonite convention to recycle the names until applied to
one who lives on past viability.
My great grandparents David &
Katherina Mueller (Miller) bore 15 children. The David born in 1860
died at 1. Susanna born in 1862 only lived a couple of weeks. Klaas
born in 1863 only lived for a week. Maria born in 1866 only lived
just under 5 months. Johann born in 1870 only lived two weeks. Isaak
a twin of Maria and born in 1871 died the same day. How
heartbreaking to lose 6 children. As I have noted in previous blogs
children born before the twentieth century had a limited life span.
My two times great grandparents;
Nikolaus (Klaas) and Susana Klassen Peters had 16 children. 11 of
their children died at birth or shortly thereafter. Oh my how cruel
it must have been. They had two sets of twins where one of each set
died at birth or the same day of birth. Each of the second twins
died within a couple of months of birth.
Aron and Helena Krahn Peters, my three
times great grandparents had a relatively small family by comparison
to previous generations. Is this because information is scant back
around the 1780's to the early 1800's? I know about 1870's they
along with many Mennonite families migrated from Prussia to South
Russia. And if anything there records were better. Aron Peters was
married 3 times. The first marriage was to an unknown women in
Prussia and they had two children before she passed on. Aron's 3rd
wife, Kristina, was married to Aron just months (July 1) after
Helena died. And Aron died 6 months later on January 1802.
Families depended on their offspring to help with the farm and land. Mothers needed help from their daughters for cooking and looking after siblings. Large families were a necessity. So few children lived beyond 5 years of age.
Wendy
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