The Deep Roots of a Big Catholic Family

I come from a big family.

A really big family.

No, I mean like, a really big family.

At a time when the nation is having a dialogue about the importance and value of having children, let there be no mistake: my ancestors, especially on my mother’s side, came to this country with the intent to duly go forth and multiply.

I am one of six kids in my family. My mother was one of five, and between her and her siblings, they produced a total of 26 children.

Those are just my first cousins. My mother had a gaggle of cousins as well on both sides of her family. The standing joke in our family was that half of the town of Lansdale, Pennsylvania was made up of my mother’s relatives, and it sure felt that way to me when I was growing up.

We and our extended cousins would fill an entire section of the cavernous St. Stanislaus Catholic Church on Sunday mornings. After the eight-thirty mass, we would gather outside to eat donuts and get caught up on how everyone was doing.

There were Kerrs and Gluecks and Swartleys and McBrides and Kunzes and Kleinmans and Rosenbergers and Stemples. There were aunts and uncles with odd names like Bib, Snookie, Sis and Bruz.

For a 10-year-old kid, it was a bit overwhelming. No matter how many times my mother told me how I was related to all these people, I couldn’t keep it straight. Even today when I get together with one of my cousins two- or three-times removed, we have a hard time articulating exactly how we’re related, except that we know that somehow we share the same blood.

One of my first cousins recently did the hard genealogical work of tracing our family lineage back to a man by the name Cyprian Glueck who came to America from Germany in 1893. Cyprian’s family tree is so big that it looks like the upside-down root system of a huge oak tree.

And that’s just one branch on the paternal side of my mother’s family. There are equally complex family trees on Mom’s maternal side, one of which (so according to my genealogist cousin) goes all the way back to Martin Luther in the 1500s. How about that?

All of these individual family root systems are linked like a huge mycorrhizal network in a forest. When we walk a forest floor, we see only the individual trees around us, but beneath our feet is a living ecosystem of roots and fungi that nourish and support the trees above. Every tree, in reality, is part of a thriving community. We are not one but many.

I don’t think my poor father knew what he was getting into when he married my mother. He came from a small family—he had just one brother who lived in South America—and the few cousins that he had didn’t reside in the immediate area and so were not visible.

Being that he was not Catholic, my father also did not understand the uniquely strong bond that characterized big Catholic families born of the Silent Generation. All he knew was that his dear wife sure had a lot of relatives and they liked to come to our house for family parties and get-togethers.

From the day that my parents bought the six-acre farmette in 1965, dozens of relatives would flock to the Kerrstead to play badminton and pet the horse and go for wagon rides behind the tractor.

Dad would grumble sometimes about how much work these parties were for him, between the mowing and the cleanup, but I know he enjoyed them. I know he was proud to show off the farm that he loved and hear his relatives rave about how delicious his freshly picked sweet corn was.  

Though my father was not related by blood to this huge Catholic menagerie, he became, by marriage, part of the flock. At his viewing five years ago this month, this quiet, private man who valued his solitude was honored by a receiving line of relatives and friends that went on for more than four hours. I have a feeling that he felt quite blessed by this.

For sure, the ties formed by large Catholic families are not perfect. Over the years, our extended family has seen all of the typical issues that every family, Catholic or not, is prey to: tragedies, conflicts, divorce, the challenges of remarriage and blended families. We argue over politics and current events.

But as one of my first cousins likes to remind me, blood is thicker than politics. It’s thicker than party affiliations and ideologies and even the common ties that make us all Americans. When tragedy strikes, you can’t necessarily count on your neighbor to help you. But you can always count on family to come to your aid.

That is the power of a big family. I was reminded of this over the weekend as the relatives of Cyprian Glueck came together for a family reunion to mark the 150th birthday of the man who, along with his wife Mary, “started the whole damn thing” (to borrow a favorite phrase of my late grandmother).

Despite the rain and damp, chilly weather, we had a great time catching up and sharing memories. "Thank God for memories," my Uncle Jim said at the reunion. I couldn't agree more.

Not a day passes that I don’t thank my lucky stars for being born into a big Catholic family.

Wherever I am, wherever I venture, whatever troubles I may face, I know I have a network of roots below me that is keeping me upright.

That is a powerful thing indeed.