.jpg)
Glenn & Fern Potter gave birth to 12 kids, 9 boys and 3 girls. (I should have known how rare girls are in our families!) 1 baby boy died of SIDS at 6 months old and twin boys died just 3 days after they were born. (So sad, but not surprising in those days.) I also stumbled upon a bit of a scandal when looking through their marriage certificate. It would appear as though Great Grandma may have fudged a bit on her legal age as to not have parental consent on her marriage. She is written in as being "of the age 21 years and upwards, of sound contracting mind..." When actually she was just 18 years old, in June of 1923, four months shy of her 19th birthday. Great Grandpa was 22. They also wasted no time in starting their family, their first being born the following spring and as you can see, they didn't show signs of slowing. They had 11 pregnancies in 16 years. (Wow, and I thought I had it bad. lol)
Here's the break down of the family tree:
Maxine, who married my Grandpa Paul Billings and had my dad Stan & my aunt Pam. All together in our family there are 16 additional apples to add to this amazing family tree.
Alma, who is one of my closest Great Aunts, she lived in Tigard, OR and we would always go visit or stay with her while we toured Portland or stopped in on our way to the beach. Her home was always open to us and she always had a tray of huge muffins ready. (And a fudgesicle for the boys.) She had 4 kids, all of whom we are very close to as well. Adding 21 more people.
Don, probably my closest Great Uncle, we attended church with him & his family growing up. I always remember how infectious his humor & laugh were. He has a great family and I'm still close with his kids. His family numbers total 22.
Donna, another very close Great Aunt, she and her husband have one daughter and she is married with 3 kids. For a total of 6 more added to this branch of the family tree.
Leland, had quite a great sized family with another 33 descendants.
Paul, has 20 in his family.
Buck, has 16 family members.
Elvin, had 26 branching off his side.
Leroy, by far the greatest sized branch (more like a trunk of it's own) with a grand total of 43!!
Now if you do the math, wait allow me, that means that 212 people were born or tied together through the branches of our family tree all because two people fell in love! Wrap your brain around that!
Here are some photos from the big day, it was held at Mike & Kathy Potter's house and it was the most beautiful and perfect location for a big event like this!
The first generation of family, direct descendants from Glenn & Fern.
The 2nd generation of first "Cousins"
The entire group, I think there were 175+ of us!!
Not sure how many were left at the time of this photo.
Aunt "Berta"
Grandpa Paul
My mom & Grady
Our cousins Zack, Jacob, Chloe & Anara
The girls, Mackenzie, Pam, me & Emily
What a wonderful family I was blessed to be born into!
Those are amazing photos, and a great write up too.
ReplyDelete