One of the striking aspects of 19th-century life in rural Arkansas was the high birth rate and the sheer size of some families. This was brought home to me recently when I came across an article in an 1889 issue of the Arkansas Gazette newspaper announcing a search for the largest family in Arkansas. A prize of $50 was to be given to the mother, $25 to the father, and an inscribed silver cup to the youngest child. The results are startling.
The Gazette started the search with a small announcement on page 4 of the March 6, 1889, edition. The one-paragraph announcement was short on details: "The Gazette has a curiosity to locate the largest family in Arkansas, to consist of father, mother, and living children." It concluded, "The facts must be verified under the seal of the clerk of the county in which they live."
Confusion arose almost immediately, especially over the matter of children born to multiple wives. Women died in frightful numbers in the 1800s, and men generally remarried quickly--often having large numbers of children by each wife. A prime example of this tendency was the case of 70-year-old George Wallace of the Benton area.
Wallace had married first in Alabama, the marriage producing eight children. After the death of his wife, Wallace married a second time and had 12 more children. His second wife apparently died too, and after migrating to Arkansas in 1849, Wallace married a third time. That marriage produced 13 more children, but they divorced. In 1860, Wallace married for the fourth time and he became a father another 14 times. Altogether Wallace and his four wives had a total of 47 children, 35 of them still living. Although its contest rules were vague, the Gazette refused to recognize Wallace's large family because of his multiple wives.
Ultimately the newspaper selected a Pike County family as the winner. W.D. and Delinda Hamilton Green, who lived near Murfreesboro and were married in 1835, had 23 children, 18 of whom were living in 1889. The first child was born in 1836, and the last in 1880. The last child was born when Mrs. Green was just short of her 62nd birthday. None of the children were twins or triplets.
The Gazette realized that many readers would be skeptical of claims that a woman gave birth regularly during a 44-year period until she was 62 years of age, so they sought medical opinions from leading but unnamed local doctors.
The first physician consulted allowed that "the above facts are possible," but he admitted basing his opinion on a single medical book--and a French one, at that. He said the average woman in the U.S. is fertile until 48, "though I have known a very few isolated cases when it has continued several years longer."
A second Little Rock doctor said, "I do not consider the fact of the last child being born when the mother was nearly 62 years of age as sufficiently remarkable to place it within the range of improbabilities." But, then the consulting doctor went out on a limb, betraying his prejudices: "Mrs. Green's class of women, when possessed of a robust constitution, are apt to continue menstruation to the age of 66." (Mrs. Green was married to an illiterate blacksmith--no matter that he was apparently upstanding and a successful tradesman.) And, as if he had not already said too much, the doctor opined that "the quietude and regularity of their habits, the absence of excitement or social dissipation, as well as [avoiding] the fashionable mode of dress, are all calculated to increase the powers in that direction."
If the Greens were indeed illiterate, perhaps they did not read the consulting doctor's insulting diatribe.
Note: This column is number 701 in a series which began in August 2002, and which I expected to last only a few years. My first goal was to make it to 500 columns, but then, you know, time went by and now I have to contemplate trying to last until I reach 1,000 columns. Meantime, I just turned 68 years of age, have multiple health challenges, including arthritic knees, and my seed potatoes in the garage are not going to plant themselves. My commitment to this column is born of a belief that Arkansans have an interesting--although at times unsavory--heritage. And, knowing our heritage, both the good and the negative, contributes to our cultural literacy as a people. Plus, there's something fun about it all. So, all my medical doctors are put on notice: I have to live long enough to produce another 299 columns. Or, maybe more.
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 02/19/2017