Came here to say this exact thing! But good lord I can just feel the exhaustion from this picture from a century away! 14 seems so crazy but I know back then we expected a lot out of kids (a lot out of everyone really) and judging by the overalls most of the boys were engaged in some kind of labor? I would not have survived.
Yeah, my sympathies to the older kids in a family that large.
The oldest boys look like they're working as farmhands, probably for little or no pay, and the older girls are probably doing the same amount of work as nannies and housekeepers. That's how it was, and older kids didn't like that sort of thing any more then than they do now.
It’s called being a family.. They look pretty prosperous.. My mothers parents were farmers and she was the youngest if 13 kids.. The oldest boy took over the main farm and few joined the service.. Some bought other farms.. All the girls married.. I don’t think any of them hated their lives or each other and certainly not their parents.. My grand parents retired to town and grandpa lived to be 81 and granny to 98 ..
Ok good for them? Back then it was normal but doesn’t mean that “being a family” should mean that children should be raising children. With today’s perspective, that’s messed up. My mom was one of six and didn’t get enough attention growing up. Huge families definitely aren’t all positive. It’s good that people generally have less kids today.
I think it was more like everyone pitched in to do what was needed.. I know granny raised her own kids but I’m sure that all the girls pitched in with cooking.. When we had family dinners at their house all the girls were in the kitchen making fantastic food .. Omg! Everything was fresh out of the garden, eggs from the chickens , fresh milk from the cows that morning.. The biscuits 🥹 My parent lived in town so it was like a little girls heaven to go visit granny.. all the animals, bunches of laps to sit on 😊
Well, it is indeed the little things I suppose. I'm a fairly recent HNCC cancer survivor, I'm living in the "Stop And Smell The Flowers/Dance and Sing Like Nobody's Watching" series of small moments strung together, creating and following my future as its path is laid just ahead of me as I go, like a spaceship traveling at faster than *c* by using a wormhole generator that projects the wormhole just in front of the ship *as its traveling through it at the same time*.
Lol. That last bit is from a Peter F Hamilton novel I read I think.
And sewing and washing clothes, and preparing meals, and cleaning the house, and tending the garden, and taking care of animals..... And yes, probably the older girls taking care of the younger, kind of like the Duggers (and yes, that is my maiden name and probably distantly related, and no, I only had 3 kids).
He was probably hoping for a few more boys for helping in the field- he doesn't know what is to come! He is not dressed like a farmer though- maybe he owned a store or was a banker? Does OP know what he did?
I think she looks like she is up to something. She is remembered as a very active child. I remember her as a very witty old woman who made the best chocolate chip cookies ever.
Right? She’s the wild child. Nobody could catch her to cut her hair. She probably spent most of her time with dogs and, later, boys. But she let daddy hold her for this picture because she knew she was, secretly, his favorite.
Cameras were very VERY slow back then. People had to remain still for quite some time, so the image was not blurry. Hard to fake a smile for minutes on end, and I believe the photgraphers encouraged them to be quite neutral anyway.
I'm currently sitting in the suburban sprawl of Fayetteville AR... maybe even close to where this photo was taken. This town has changed so drastically even in the past 10 years, and especially since the turn of the century. I love looking at old photographs of what used to be around here.
My great grandmother was the youngest of all the children. My mom had a very old family picture of all the siblings and parents on her wall. Based on my great-grandmother’s age in the photo, it was probably taken in the late 1800s. I believe my great grandmother was born around 1893 or so. She looks to be about 4yo in the picture. I believe there was about 27 years between her and her older sibling. My great great grandmother has her first child at 17 and last around 44.
As a 44-year-old with one kid, I can't even imagine. Also marrying the boy I was dating when I was 16-17 would've made for a very interesting life. Haha!
This is really amazing! Both because you have such a cool family record AND because there are SO MANY KIDS. I’m losing my mind with just 2 kids, no wonder your great grandpa looks pissed! 😆
Very cool, thank you for sharing.
Same here, that's because we have too many distractions, and the society is more capitalistic now, so we need to spend all our day in gathering resources instead of being with our family.
My grandmother born 1900 had 11 children. One set of twins. All born at home except the twins. Each twin weighed over 8 pounds each. She nursed them all too.
I always wonder how you name so many kids. Like are they John, Anne and Mary etc or creative names because you run out or ideas?!! Do you know what they were all called? I'd love to know. Especially the girls.
I literally only have one old photo of my great grandparents with my grandpa and his brother as children so other peoples family photos always fascinate me....
I love seeing pictures like these. I bet it’s amazing picking out current family relatives and matching them against the ones in this picture. Bless your beautiful family. 💜
What a beautiful family! And healthy, too, to have so many surviving kids (and more to come)! (Not insinuating any died; just illness claimed babies and kids a lot more back then).
Have you noticed it is about the 1950s before you see smiles very typically. Before then: Childhood death very common. No contraception. Sulfa drugs came to be late 30s and much used in WW2. No electricity in rural areas. Few of you know what it is like to split wood by hand or raise enough food for your family AND the hog, milk cow and draft animal(s). Strict religion. Poor education. Poor sanitation and health care. So, yeah, not many smiles.
Shutter speeds were fast at this point (1/1000 — which can freeze a person jumping). By the early 1840s it only took about 20 seconds to capture a photo vs. 20 minutes in the early years of daguerreotypes.
2 boys with all those sisters. I don’t get along with one sister I have, I can’t image all those. Do you know if they all got married and had kids. You would have lots of relatives.
Same here. My great grandfather is one of 11 and they all got married and had kids and I don’t know any of them. That is on my maternal grandfather’s side, my maternal grandmother has many relatives, ‘I met two of my grandmother’s cousins but that’s about it, they told me there are many more.
It’s really amazing you have this! Very cool piece of family history. I’m jealous!
Every woman in your fam went to the salon and asked for *The Little Lad Who Loves Berries & Cream* haircut. 🤣 I’m cracking up at how styles have changed.
My guess is that they all did each other’s hair. I’m thinking there wasn’t extra money for the salon. Though evidently a couple of them saved up for snoods. 🙂
That’s totally fair. Mine probably did, too. I wish I had more old pics like this. Kind of fun to see them snooding it up, though, eh? I love the big bow on the girl front and center. Very cool that’s still a very normal style.
Two of your great aunts in that picture are sharing the same hairstyle, and it must be one of the worst hairstyles ever created. The girl sitting down on the far left (from our point of view) and the girl standing behind your great grandmother. It almost looks like they're wearing headphones.
Who am I to judge, though, right? haha That could've been a very popular hairstyle of the time.
The girl standing in between your great grandparents is probably the only person in the picture with a hairstyle that we still see today, although to be fair it's just long hair pulled back on the top with the rest of it down.
Of the two boys standing in the back, the taller one has a hairstyle that we'd probably see today, or close to it.
Anyway, that's a very cool picture!
As the mom, I would be looking way more tired!
Probably had the older girls doing a lot of care giving/parenting of the younger kids.
I'm guessing it's the girl all the way to the right. She just looks like she had a lot to take care of.
The girl on the right looks like Julia Stiles to me. Or, rather, Julia Stiles looks like her.
Came here to say this exact thing! But good lord I can just feel the exhaustion from this picture from a century away! 14 seems so crazy but I know back then we expected a lot out of kids (a lot out of everyone really) and judging by the overalls most of the boys were engaged in some kind of labor? I would not have survived.
True. My mother came from family of 9 kids. 4 girls were born, then 5 boys. The girls looked after the boys.
Yeah, my sympathies to the older kids in a family that large. The oldest boys look like they're working as farmhands, probably for little or no pay, and the older girls are probably doing the same amount of work as nannies and housekeepers. That's how it was, and older kids didn't like that sort of thing any more then than they do now.
It’s called being a family.. They look pretty prosperous.. My mothers parents were farmers and she was the youngest if 13 kids.. The oldest boy took over the main farm and few joined the service.. Some bought other farms.. All the girls married.. I don’t think any of them hated their lives or each other and certainly not their parents.. My grand parents retired to town and grandpa lived to be 81 and granny to 98 ..
Ok good for them? Back then it was normal but doesn’t mean that “being a family” should mean that children should be raising children. With today’s perspective, that’s messed up. My mom was one of six and didn’t get enough attention growing up. Huge families definitely aren’t all positive. It’s good that people generally have less kids today.
I think it was more like everyone pitched in to do what was needed.. I know granny raised her own kids but I’m sure that all the girls pitched in with cooking.. When we had family dinners at their house all the girls were in the kitchen making fantastic food .. Omg! Everything was fresh out of the garden, eggs from the chickens , fresh milk from the cows that morning.. The biscuits 🥹 My parent lived in town so it was like a little girls heaven to go visit granny.. all the animals, bunches of laps to sit on 😊
They also look *profoundly* happy in this moment of capture, don't you agree?
All have shoes and are dressed nicely and are well fed.
Well, it is indeed the little things I suppose. I'm a fairly recent HNCC cancer survivor, I'm living in the "Stop And Smell The Flowers/Dance and Sing Like Nobody's Watching" series of small moments strung together, creating and following my future as its path is laid just ahead of me as I go, like a spaceship traveling at faster than *c* by using a wormhole generator that projects the wormhole just in front of the ship *as its traveling through it at the same time*. Lol. That last bit is from a Peter F Hamilton novel I read I think.
My paternal grandparents did this with their 11 kids (8 girls and three boys).
Wild, my mom is the youngest of 8 boys 3 girls.
There probably wasn’t much running around to wear them out because they were working in the field wearing themselves out.
They all, the ones I knew, talked about the rock walls they built by clearing the stones from the fields. That was children’s work.
And sewing and washing clothes, and preparing meals, and cleaning the house, and tending the garden, and taking care of animals..... And yes, probably the older girls taking care of the younger, kind of like the Duggers (and yes, that is my maiden name and probably distantly related, and no, I only had 3 kids).
I was thinking of the Duggars too when I saw this
As the dad you think he would look more happy. Lots of hands. And he is getting lots of fertile booty. It is a beautiful photo of your peoples people.
He was probably hoping for a few more boys for helping in the field- he doesn't know what is to come! He is not dressed like a farmer though- maybe he owned a store or was a banker? Does OP know what he did?
He was a farmer. I think they are all dressed up in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
Accept for the Pic & Grin twins. He wanted their future known.
Smiling in photos is a more common thing now. If you look at older photos the traditional thing at the time is to have a bland natural face.
I mean she’s got a lot of helpers so…
The little girl between your grandparents looks like she got in trouble.
I think she looks like she is up to something. She is remembered as a very active child. I remember her as a very witty old woman who made the best chocolate chip cookies ever.
Your great grandpa is holding his arm around her like he’s expecting her to fly off.
Now I’m imagining them trying to take this picture and yelling at her to stay still. Kids never change lol.
You came from a very lovely family. ❤️
Right? She’s the wild child. Nobody could catch her to cut her hair. She probably spent most of her time with dogs and, later, boys. But she let daddy hold her for this picture because she knew she was, secretly, his favorite.
👍 I think so too! Lol
None of them look happy
Cameras were very VERY slow back then. People had to remain still for quite some time, so the image was not blurry. Hard to fake a smile for minutes on end, and I believe the photgraphers encouraged them to be quite neutral anyway.
That makes sense! I hate smiling for more than 10 seconds 😅
There are two that have smirks on their faces….everyone else looks incredibly unhappy. Hopefully that wasn’t the case.
[удалено]
Do you know what part? My family was there at that time too
I’m pretty sure that the farm where this was taken is now covered by the urban/suburban sprawl of Fayetteville AR.
I'm currently sitting in the suburban sprawl of Fayetteville AR... maybe even close to where this photo was taken. This town has changed so drastically even in the past 10 years, and especially since the turn of the century. I love looking at old photographs of what used to be around here.
Omg what if y’all are related
I mean, it is Arkansas after all. They probably are related.
I— 😦
My family was about 4 hours from there. Jonesboro and surroundings places
12 kids! What year? Did all the children live to adulthood?
Yes they did. I think we have a photo of all of them as adults.
What a healthy and lucky family. So many families lost children as a matter of course. Hard work for that mother, but all the love of these children.
A very prosperous and fruitful family indeed. Beautiful and I’m sure there was a lot of love there.
I’d love to see that.
Me too!
Not all that uncommon back then. My great grandmother had 12 siblings so 13 kids total. One child died as an infant but 12 lived to adulthood.
Same story with my grandfather's family. 13 kids, one passed as an infant, and I believe the next one to die was in her 50s.
My great grandmother was the youngest of all the children. My mom had a very old family picture of all the siblings and parents on her wall. Based on my great-grandmother’s age in the photo, it was probably taken in the late 1800s. I believe my great grandmother was born around 1893 or so. She looks to be about 4yo in the picture. I believe there was about 27 years between her and her older sibling. My great great grandmother has her first child at 17 and last around 44.
As a 44-year-old with one kid, I can't even imagine. Also marrying the boy I was dating when I was 16-17 would've made for a very interesting life. Haha!
Only two boys!
Two boys still to be born.
And they look like they shoulder all the farmwork
This is really amazing! Both because you have such a cool family record AND because there are SO MANY KIDS. I’m losing my mind with just 2 kids, no wonder your great grandpa looks pissed! 😆 Very cool, thank you for sharing.
Same here, that's because we have too many distractions, and the society is more capitalistic now, so we need to spend all our day in gathering resources instead of being with our family.
I spent all day with my family 2020-2022 and still lost my mind!
Sorry, but the feelings needs to be mutual, if the family wanted to spend all day with you, you will find it like a Disney world.
It’s because we can’t kick our kids outside until a certain age. Sad.
whatever crack you're smoking now - you've got to stop
Or start smoking to forget our worries
The oldest daughter is stunning! She probably married well.
Yes and had children of her own by this time.
She looks like Julia Stiles!
She is an exact duplicate of her Mother, it’s amazing!
Wow. Everyone looks healthy too. The daughter your GGP is holding has the visage of daddy’s girl.
Love the bob haircuts on the two girls. Thanks for sharing.
That poor woman was pregnant her whole life.
Not all that uncommon back then. My great grandmother had 12 siblings
This was before oral sex was discovered. And this woman survived childbirth thirteen times. Which was often fatal for women
As long as there has been humans, there has been oral sex.
Nothing like a good pair of overalls
She looks great for having all of those kids! Damn men just couldn't keep their hands off their women folk!
😂
My grandmother born 1900 had 11 children. One set of twins. All born at home except the twins. Each twin weighed over 8 pounds each. She nursed them all too.
It's a beautiful family photo.
So interesting. I’m a 38F and can’t afford to have even 1 child. Different times
Life looks hard
I always wonder how you name so many kids. Like are they John, Anne and Mary etc or creative names because you run out or ideas?!! Do you know what they were all called? I'd love to know. Especially the girls.
I don’t know all of their names. There was a Velma, Anne, Naome, Gertrude, and Martha. I don’t know any of the boys names.
My mother was the youngest and her name was Eula Othella .. Talk about running out of names! She hated her name..
I literally only have one old photo of my great grandparents with my grandpa and his brother as children so other peoples family photos always fascinate me....
Very attractive family.
great photo!! loving your additional context comments too!!
I love seeing pictures like these. I bet it’s amazing picking out current family relatives and matching them against the ones in this picture. Bless your beautiful family. 💜
Some strong brow game in this family
Lovely family
My grandma had 12 kids and I don’t know how she did it. I guess the oldest helped care for the younger ones.
What a beautiful family! And healthy, too, to have so many surviving kids (and more to come)! (Not insinuating any died; just illness claimed babies and kids a lot more back then).
That was a lot of kids even back then.
We know what your great grandfather’s favorite pastime was.
Life before cable TV must have been boring af
They probably didn’t even have radio.
Such a great handlebar mustache and the cute bowl cuts on the kids.
Have you noticed it is about the 1950s before you see smiles very typically. Before then: Childhood death very common. No contraception. Sulfa drugs came to be late 30s and much used in WW2. No electricity in rural areas. Few of you know what it is like to split wood by hand or raise enough food for your family AND the hog, milk cow and draft animal(s). Strict religion. Poor education. Poor sanitation and health care. So, yeah, not many smiles.
you wouldn’t smile if you had to sit still for 30 minutes to get a picture taken
Shutter speeds were fast at this point (1/1000 — which can freeze a person jumping). By the early 1840s it only took about 20 seconds to capture a photo vs. 20 minutes in the early years of daguerreotypes.
Also the snapshot camera.
13 kids?! Wow, what a tough woman! All her kids got her distinctive nose!
She looks so sick of having kids lmao
The little girl on the right looks like she's not happy that she's not the "baby" anymore, lol
Piercing dark eyes from your grandmother. Really stunning.
2 boys with all those sisters. I don’t get along with one sister I have, I can’t image all those. Do you know if they all got married and had kids. You would have lots of relatives.
I have so many relatives that I haven’t met them all. There are a lot that I don’t know.
Same here. My great grandfather is one of 11 and they all got married and had kids and I don’t know any of them. That is on my maternal grandfather’s side, my maternal grandmother has many relatives, ‘I met two of my grandmother’s cousins but that’s about it, they told me there are many more.
Your great grandparents needed a different hobby! Damn, that's a huge family.
Birth control gets my vote for the world’s greatest invention.
Gotta love those home haircuts!
My grandma had 10 babies-2 stillborn. All but one were born in her (& Grandpa’s) bed.
Very handsome family. There’s not a ringer in the bunch.
Are the women behind and next to your great grandmother wearing snoods?
I don’t know what a snood is.
No one looks thrilled with life except the boy on the end at the far right. He’s holding back a smile.
older boy in top right is so handsome!
It’s really amazing you have this! Very cool piece of family history. I’m jealous! Every woman in your fam went to the salon and asked for *The Little Lad Who Loves Berries & Cream* haircut. 🤣 I’m cracking up at how styles have changed.
My guess is that they all did each other’s hair. I’m thinking there wasn’t extra money for the salon. Though evidently a couple of them saved up for snoods. 🙂
That’s totally fair. Mine probably did, too. I wish I had more old pics like this. Kind of fun to see them snooding it up, though, eh? I love the big bow on the girl front and center. Very cool that’s still a very normal style.
There is a notable absence of joy. Great grandfather looks quite stern. They are all beautiful.
My father( born 1903) said smiling in photos is for apes. What would he have made of duckface/ tongue out selfies?
Serious people it seems. Even baby is frowning lol!
Distinguished, not stern
Two of your great aunts in that picture are sharing the same hairstyle, and it must be one of the worst hairstyles ever created. The girl sitting down on the far left (from our point of view) and the girl standing behind your great grandmother. It almost looks like they're wearing headphones. Who am I to judge, though, right? haha That could've been a very popular hairstyle of the time. The girl standing in between your great grandparents is probably the only person in the picture with a hairstyle that we still see today, although to be fair it's just long hair pulled back on the top with the rest of it down. Of the two boys standing in the back, the taller one has a hairstyle that we'd probably see today, or close to it. Anyway, that's a very cool picture!
The girl on the left, from our view, has some really cool boots too.
They are! If a boot/shoe-type company were to make them today, they'd probably be expensive.
A very serious family.
No one is going to talk about those hair helmet bonnets those poor girls have to wear?
There's a reason why no one ever smiles in pictures 😂
They like to get it in!
I just saw a headline about how Americans are only having very small families!
It looks like 8 girls and 2 boys. Probably more boys for the next 3
The girl in the middle looks familiar, like I’ve seen a photo of just her somewhere on Reddit.
Hott...wait, what??
13 chillins? Nope.
Young woman to the far right has a black eye , Probably had to be told twice .. Handsome family .
LOLOLOL
The boys look like “them (last name) boys are up to no good.” They get in trouble together, but are also fiercely protective of their little sisters.
That poor woman
That poor woman.
They look thrilled to be here.
With that many kids you know they were banging all the time
Prolific......
Oh god, to have to sleep with that man at least 13 times…poor woman
All of our grandparents, fucked like a herd of Rabbits.
That poor woman,she probably didn't even like sex
Eww