Seriously, How Many Years?
Well, here’s a fun fact that you may not know about me…I am 32 years older than my youngest sister. Our mother was very young (16 almost 17) when she had me and much, much older (49) when she had Angelina. Geraldine “Jerrie” McLeod Watkins Bernal was born on May 20, 1938; I was born on May 8, 1955; Angelina was born October 4, 1987. No fertility treatments were involved with Angelina; in fact, my mother thought she had the flu. When she went to the doctor, he insisted on a pregnancy test which my mother laughed at. After all, she was sure that she had gone through menopause. Oops, she received an unexpected surprise. Throughout her pregnancy, the doctor took notes at all of her appointments. Finally, my mother asked if he was planning on writing an article about her. He acknowledged that indeed that was his plan. I have no idea if it ever came to fruition. My mother had a normal pregnancy with no issues. Later she claimed that having a child late in life just kept her young.
While my mother is the family record holder of having children with the largest age gap, it is by no means unusual on the Anthony side. It seems that large gaps between children run in the family. My great great grandmother, Maria Christina Schaefer Schmidt had 16 children. Her oldest child was my great grandmother, Gertrude Schmidt Anthony, who was 24 years older than Maria’s youngest child, Henry. Maria Schaefer was born in Germany and married Heinrich Joseph Schmidt. They had their first daughter, my great grandmother, Gertrude Schmidt, on August 8, 1867. The family of three immigrated to the United States in 1870 and settled in La Crosse, Wisconsin where the rest of the children were born.
My great grandmother Gertrude Schmidt married John Peter Anthony. They had 10 children and there was a gap of 19 years between their first-born, Henry (1886) and their youngest daughter, my grandmother, Anna Agnes Anthony, who was born in 1905.
Interestingly, the current generation in our family also has some significant age gaps between children. Angelina and her husband Derek have a gap of 14 years between their two girls. My nephew Seth and his wife Jamie had a baby in 2024. There is a 20-year gap between Jamie’s oldest daughter and her youngest.
Life is often unpredictable. Think back to your high school years. Remember all the plans and goals you had at that time. Chances are that your life took some unforeseen turns, and certainly we have all had things that happened to us that we could never have envisioned. Often, the best path is to embrace the unexpected as our mother did. Through her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren her legacy lives on.
