For some time I've had the inkling that many of my female ancestors had been baby-makers whether coincidentally or of their own choice. As a single mother of a single child, I have my opinions about childbearing and the status of women. I also have strong opinions about population numbers. I knew that many of my ancestors had many children. I also knew that at least one of my ancestors died very shortly after her last baby was born. I knew that one of my grandmothers had her last baby quite late in her life.
We now know that childbearing include risks to the mother, if not the fetus, that increase as the age of the mother increases although women still have babies into their late 30s and early 40s. I was curious about the age of my female ancestors when they had their last baby. This is what I found:
This is, of course, not all my female ancestors but those I was able to collect these facts.
Thinking about the various aspects of these facts can be interesting: the time period of the last births, the ages of the mothers, the number of children these women had, how the age of the mothers might have affected their children.
My grandmother, Ida Mattice O'Dell, told me that her doctors didn't think she could carry a pregnancy to term because she was small, 4' 11", yet she had 7 children and didn't seem to feel that giving birth was difficult.
Note that Mary Hendrickson Hulse died shortly after giving birth to her last child; generally thought to have died in childbirth.
Note that Anna Hendrickson was 54 when she had her last child. I can't imagine.
Note also that Mary Hogancamp Vandermark gave birth to 16 children. I can't imagine.
The lives of many of our ancestors was quite different from ours and not that long ago.
This was an interesting exercise.
