Largest
Amish family ever?
With an average of around seven children, Amish families are
hefty by modern standards. Farm families tend to be the biggest. A
dozen or more children is not rare. But the largest Amish family
ever? Read on to learn about one possibility:
John Troyer, who lived near Kokomo, Indiana, had an
unusually large family, perhaps the largest of all time among the Amish or
Mennonites. John was first married to Catherine Schrock who bore him
twelve children. Following her death he married her cousin Caroline
(Schrock) Kendall, a young widow with two children. John and Caroline in
turn had seventeen additional children. This made a total of 31 children.
No word on whether John needed name tags to keep track of them all.
No word on whether John needed name tags to keep track of them all.
(Source: Joseph Stoll, “Amish and Mennonite Family
Names”, Family Life, March 1969)
How many
children does an average Amish family have?
Amish families are large, with 6-7
and even up to 9 children on average
In contrast to modern society, an Amish couple expects to
have a large family, and an Amish woman often becomes pregnant shortly after
her wedding. Amish view children as gifts from God, and thus the use of
contraception is frowned upon.
However, birth control and other family planning methods may
be practiced by some Amish, particularly in more progressive communities.
Yet Amish families remain large, with an agrarian tradition and a need
for manual labor also supporting a high Amish birth rate.
Amish family size
Amish typically have between 6-8 children. The number
of children may vary by community, though 6 or 7 are often cited as averages
for the Amish as a whole.
Nolt and Meyers note a range of family sizes among Amish in
Indiana, for example, with the Kokomo community averaging only 6 children, the
Elkhart-Lagrange community 7, both Allen and Daviess counties with 8, and the
Swiss Amish settlement at Adams County with a whopping 9 children per family (Amish
Patchwork, Meyers and Nolt).
A study by Hurst and McConnell found an average family size
in Holmes County, Ohio of 5 children, though this figure includes families
which have not completed their fertility cycle, and thus would be lower than
one taking into account only completed families (Amish Paradox, Hurst
and McConnell).
However, due to varying factors
which may include a shift away from farm work and greater openness among some
Amish to family planning, Amish family sizes have in fact dipped slightly in
some communities.
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