She really did give birth to 69 children

While at "the home" with my Dad the past 3 days I got to know some of the residents better. 
Many of them were SO friendly to me, especially during breakfast. 
So high spirited around there. 
About 5 or 6 were calling me by name and would come over to my table and tell me things.

Opal (3rd from the left), for example told me about Mary and how she had 12 children. 
I wanted to meet her so I went to their table and asked, "Which one of you is Mary?

She's the one on the far right. Turns out she didn't have 12 children, she has 7, HOWEVER, 
she was the 15th of 16 children and her Mom lived to be 94! 
I do remember reading somewhere that all that extra nurturing helps a person to live longer.

So then I go back to my table and that gentleman (the one in that picture) comes over to me and says,
"Jill, do you know which woman holds the world's record for having the most children?"  
Uh, no, tell me. 
He said, "It was a woman in Russia. She had 69 children and all single births....
no twins, no triplets, no quadruplets." 

I'm no math major like two of my sons, but even I can figure out that is impossible
....even if she were to have a baby every 9 months!

So a few hours later at lunch my Dad and Den and I were laughing about the 69 children 
when Den looks it up on his iphone and then suddenly laughs and exclaims, 
"It's true!" 
Huh, no way, let me see that.

She gave birth for 50 years, from 1725-1765. 
However, she did have several multiple births:
16 sets of twins
7 sets of triplets
4 sets of quads.

And, 67 of her 69 children survived infancy!

She was the wife of Feodor Vassilyev (women didn't have their own identities back in the 1700s). 
I question all of this, and so does Wikipedia, 
but Feodor's wife was included in the Guinness Book of World Records. 

Now if I only had a picture of those 69 children.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not gonna happen. No photography in the 1700s. And even if there was, it would have been hard to get all 69 children in the same place at the same time for a photo! Too bad. That would be really fun to see. I'd especially like to see the mother. How hardy must a woman be to carry all those children.... and evidently all her children were either twins, triplets, or quads. No singletons. It just doesn't seem possible.
darlene

Grandma Honey said...

I agree, it doesn't seem possible. And yes, she supposedly had several single babies as well...after adding up all those multiple births I guess I could figure out how many were left.

I do wonder how they kept this story going through the years and where the info came from.

Anonymous said...

16 2s is 32
7 3s is 21
4 4s is 16
That adds up to 69, I believe
darlene

Karen Mortensen said...

Wow. Tom's mom had 11 and I thought that was a lot.

Grandma Honey said...

Karen~ 11 is A LOT of children. Where did Tom fit into that mix? What a fun childhood he must have had.

Darlene. Oops! Well, like i said, I'm not a math major. Yep that pretty much equals 69. That's still 27 pregnancies. I don't know, maybe women were different back then.

Karen Mortensen said...

Tom was number 3. I don't think he had much of a fun childhood. They lived on a farm.

Richard said...

Her name was Myrtle and she never experienced PMS...

Karen Mortensen said...

Richard- that is my mother in law's name.

Grandma Honey said...

Uh oh Richard now you're in trouble. Besides, Den and I nearly choked on dinner reading your comment!

Lisa said...

I'm positive you will find that picture of the 67 kids! Amazing information & piques the curiosity. What happened to them....? : )

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