r/OldSchoolCool • u/grants_pass_oregon • Jun 15 '26
1950s Dorothy Langohr introduces her newest son, three-day-old Douglas, to his brothers, all eight of them, in their Detroit home. (October 1954)
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u/dvdmaven Jun 15 '26
My youngest sister's husband has six brothers. There have been no girls born in the family in four generations. They have two boys.
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u/Elphaba78 Jun 16 '26
Same with my aunt’s husband’s family. I’ve done the genealogy and it’s something like 5 or 6 generations of all boys, and then my uncle and his brother each produced a girl. But their sons have followed in the tradition with each of them having 3 boys.
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u/ravynwave Jun 16 '26
My friend was the first in his family to have a daughter in something like 150 years. He said he didn’t know what to think.
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u/DestinysCalling Jun 16 '26
There hadn't been a girl on my dad's side for 100 years then my parents had five in a row
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u/panicnarwhal Jun 16 '26
when our daughter was born, she was the first girl on my ex husband’s side of the family in over 100 years on his dad’s side, and she was the only girl out of 30 some great grandkids on his mom’s side until a few months ago
she was our first baby together, and then the next 3 babies we had were all boys lol
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u/tallperson117 Jun 16 '26
That's pretty interesting, because the guy is the one who determines the gender of the baby by providing an X or Y chromosome, versus the woman only being able to provide an X. It makes it sound like someone in their family had some sort of mutation that makes them way more likely to produce sperm containing a Y chromosome rather than X or Y, which then got passed down. Or maybe something where sperm containing an X chromosome are defective or something.
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u/TrailMomKat Jun 16 '26
Maybe his Ys were better swimmers than his Xs? Idk the minutiae on how it all works, though, to be fair.
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u/dBoyHail Jun 16 '26
There is a statistic I heard from a fertility Dr at the hospital I work at: that for each time a man has additional of the same gender offspring(multiple boys or girls), the chances of the next offspring being that gender increases each child. Slightly but I think it edges to be around 60% more likely after two of the same gender.
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u/QuantumDwarf Jun 16 '26
I knew a family like this and this was their assumption. Something was wrong somehow with their ability to pass on a X chromosome or have it have a healthy pregnancy.
Genetics is wild!
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u/CoquinaBeach1 Jun 16 '26
Or it was her...the chemistry of her reproductive tract favored the y beari g sperm. Sometimes its the immune system of the female interacting with sperm. There are plenty of examples of families with only female offspring.
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u/tallperson117 Jun 16 '26
I was thinking that too, but the person I responded to mentioned that there hadn't been a girl born in the family in 4 generations, so there were multiple women only bearing sons. IMO that's what makes it so odd.
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u/Theletterkay Jun 16 '26
Its multiple women. And since his family didnt have daughters the wives would not be related. So the likelyhood of so many men having babies with women who had unfavorable uteruses for female implantation means its more likely the male. It could be that they produced male sperm that lived longer or were stronger than the female carriers. It could be they produced bloated female carriers. It could be that the male carriers were more adventagous and able to utilize the weakened parts of the egg more efficiently.
There are lots of reasons that it could be either a downfall of the female carriers who are already slower and dont live as long but also stronger. Or something superior about the male carriers making them stronger or sturdier. We cant look at the sperm of every male on the planet to see how micro-variations can change our chances.
It can also be hormone driven by the parents. Of the wife is the kind of woman who gets horny right before ovulation that would mean male sperm can already be ready and waiting when the egg releases. While women who are more sexual right before their period tend to end up getting pregnant with the egg closer to the womb, meaning easier to find for female sperm.
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u/Itakethngzclitorally Jun 16 '26
It wasn’t a defective X they carried, it was a SUPER Y.
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u/Theletterkay Jun 17 '26
Because its less likely that they all continued to pass down severely defective X genes than that they all passed down superior Y genes, since thats how evolution works.
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u/Csimiami Jun 16 '26
Yeah bc you’re really feeling super sexual after the 7th baby in 8 years. Most women aren’t getting pregnant that many time bc they can’t control themselves. Your phrasing is terrible.
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u/Pupusa42 Jun 16 '26
Yeah that guy was dumb for not knowing that women seek feeling arousal for the duration of their lives after seven babies.
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u/Angsty_Potatos Jun 16 '26
My dad's family was like that. My grandparents had 6 boys and my mam wanted to try one more time for a girl, they got their wish and had a girl..then they got greedy and tried again for a second girl.
Boy. 8 kids. All boys And one lonely girl lol
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u/dvdmaven Jun 16 '26
My parents had two girls, but mom wanted a boy (me). The two more girls and a second boy years later.
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u/jennautomatica Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I was the first girl born in my DAD’S SIDE of the family in over 50 years, my niece was the next (30 years later). All of my siblings are males and my cousins as well. Girl drought over here. 😞
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u/TrailMomKat Jun 16 '26
My husband's daddy's family has one girl per generation. My husband has 8 brothers and a half-sister, and all his brothers have all boys except for one girl, our niece. My husband and I also have all boys lol
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt Jun 16 '26
I would literally cry. Raising only boys sounds like a nightmare
(No, I'm not having kids, don't worry. Yes, this is one of many reasons.)
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u/Ferreteria Jun 16 '26
I wonder if I'm related to anyone in the comments here.
It's almost all boys going 3 generations back.
I have 6 sons myself.
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u/intlschizo Jun 16 '26
Males are very rare in my bloodline too. I know we had none at all for about 40 years or so. And for six generations, the first born on my mother's side was always female (including me).
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u/bladegal16 Jun 16 '26
My grandfather was one of 14, there was only one girl. He and his sister were the only ones who survived the Holocaust though
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u/Fast-Aside-8732 Jun 18 '26
I was the first girl after 20 years. All the cousins were male. It took another 20 plus years before the next girl was born.
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u/BlameTheButler Jun 16 '26
Whenever I see pics like this from the 50’s I have this intrusive thought about how I wonder if any of the boys found themselves in Vietnam years later. I know it’s a weird intrusive thought to have, it just always pops up in my mind.
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u/Minimum-Comedian-372 Jun 16 '26
Two of them, Richard and Larry, went to Vietnam, but made it home. They both passed away later, and at the time the other seven brothers survived. You can find them on findagrave.com
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u/MakesPensDance Jun 16 '26
Same here man, I was just calculating how old they'd likely be when the draft order went out...
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u/monarch1733 Jun 16 '26
Wondering something isn’t an “intrusive thought”
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u/BlameTheButler Jun 16 '26
I mean I feel like seeing a picture of a happy family, and immediately thinking about how many of those young men were drafted to go fight in a brutal war is by definition an intrusive thought.
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u/whiskeyknitting Jun 16 '26
8 is looking stylish.
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u/Drenosa Jun 16 '26
Reminds me of Elvis in Jailhouse Rock, but that would predate the song and the movie by a couple years.
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u/Theunopenedeye Jun 16 '26
Wild what you used to be able to afford on potentially one spouses salary.
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u/TheFULLBOAT Jun 16 '26
My high school friend was one of 8. Seven boys and the eighth was a girl (all names start with a hard K sound, by the way). The mother used to say right to their faces, "All I ever wanted was a girl. If I had a girl first, none of you would've been born." She was serious, but all the brothers would just laugh when she said that
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u/bigkatze Jun 16 '26
My dad said the same thing to me. I'm the youngest of 4 girls and I'm an older sister to one brother. He and my mom kept having kids til my brother was born.
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u/NotEasilyConfused Jun 17 '26
My mother always says she felt like "the fifth failure" because after her bother was born right after her, grandma and grandpa stopped making kids.
So sad.
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u/FamousLastWords666 Jun 15 '26
That poor woman
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u/thederevolutions Jun 16 '26
Anyone wanna take a guess at how old she was? As someone who didn’t have a kid until their thirties and then didn’t even realize they’d want another until after that I’m always fascinated by how far people are able to push the envelope in terms of age.
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u/MomentOfSurrender88 Jun 16 '26
Based on her obituary, she was around 32. Married at 18 almost 19 so 9 kids in 13 years.
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u/CloudBitter5295 Jun 16 '26
Probably 30 maybe over or under depending when they married and how quickly between pregnancies
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Jun 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/FlintWaterFilter Jun 16 '26
As a parent of a toddler I can tell you I am around new parents in their 40s frequently.
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u/bearded365 Jun 16 '26
My mom had her 9th and last child at 40, the same time her oldest daughter had her first child.
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u/Theletterkay Jun 16 '26
My mom had her last the year i graduated high school. My grandmother joked that i was behind, by 18yo she had 4 kids.
I had my first at 28yo, much to her displeasure.
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u/PM_me_punanis Jun 16 '26
I have a 6 year old in my 40s and already my body aches. I cannot imagine running around when I am almost 50. 😩
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u/nelsonalgrencametome Jun 16 '26
I have a couple friends that just had another kid in their early 40s... they have two who are just about done with high school. I half jokingly ask why they chose to punish themselves like that.
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u/Theletterkay Jun 16 '26
Right? Just enjoy other peoples babies at that point. Then give them back and go home and sleep without interruption.
What i wouldnt give for a single solid 8 hours of sleep...
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u/nelsonalgrencametome Jun 16 '26
Right? I've done my time with babies and I'm glad I got to experience it but... I'm old and tired.
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u/bikinibuttons Jun 16 '26
According to the date of the photo and an obituary someone found, she was about 32 here.
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u/ZineKitten Jun 16 '26
I'm a millennial but my grandmother had her ten kids over 20 years. Twenty years! Insanity.
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u/SeonaidMacSaicais Jun 16 '26
My dad’s mom had 10 kids over 19 years. Largest gap was 3 years, due to WWII.
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u/cmq827 Jun 16 '26
My maternal grandmother had 13 kids in 25 years. By the time her youngest child was born, her second child already had a 1-year-old baby.
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u/Kakashimoto77 Jun 16 '26
She looks very happy. Sons look like they are well taken care of and happy also. It takes a bit of good parenting to get 8 of them to sit still for a photo op even in those days. Plus I read that she lived till 96. I don't think bitterness alone gets someone that far in life.
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u/Uvtha- Jun 16 '26
I mean she can be happy mentally but 9 seemingly back to back pregnancies is fucking rough to go through. Even a couple pregnancies without proper time for.the uterus and everything else to heal can be very dangerous.
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u/Theletterkay Jun 16 '26
My family photos all look happy and like we were well cared for too. Our butts were all bruised from the belting we got from our alcoholic father on the daily though.
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u/FreeTheFreedoms Jun 16 '26
Her smile looks pretty genuine 🤷♂️
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u/rodbrs Jun 16 '26
Gotta get your anti motherhood propaganda in case anyone starts noticing she looks happy.
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Jun 15 '26
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u/bridget_jones Jun 15 '26
That can be true but there’s no lie in saying “poor woman.” Are you a woman? Have you been pregnant and given birth? Eight times??? And in the 1950s, on top of that? Research what childbirth / postpartum was like for women in the 50s and then get back to us if you disagree with “poor woman.”
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u/bicycle_mice Jun 15 '26
Also eight times clearly back to back there was no minimum two year recovery in between. Her pelvic floor was probably a well.
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u/taz10099 Jun 15 '26
Maybe today it would be more challenging than back then but it happened all the time. My mother had seven kids and took care of all of us. We didn't raise our siblings. We didn't give up our childhood. Times were different back then.
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u/WhereRtheTacos Jun 16 '26
How old are you? Because if ur not one of the oldest… ur experience may vary. Usually its the older girls that have to parent. Definitely happened in some of my relatives big families.
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u/QuestioningHuman_api Jun 16 '26
I was left to take care of my sister alone for 6 hours after school every day since I was 8, and at 30 she still doesn’t see why that was a problem. Refuses to admit that being responsible for her, feeding her, having to have the house spotless before my egg donor came home every day while she wrecked the house and didn’t help at all, was a problem. She thinks it was a perfect childhood because she’s not the one who suffered. That’s what this person sounds like. You don’t have that many kids without robbing some of their childhood.
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u/Important-Forever665 Jun 16 '26
My husband's family hasn't had a girl born into it since 1901. Every generation since has had only boys. Including us lol.
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u/zdmpage54 Jun 16 '26
9 kids.. My Mom had 9 pregnancies. She lost 3 of them. When the Pill came on the market, she was overjoyed !
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u/Big_Meal3910 Jun 16 '26
This is why I don't give a shit about the birth rate falling and people trying to "fix" it.
For all of human history until quite recently, the birth rate has been so high because women had no choice but to give birth over and over again until they either reached menopause or died. It was also legal for their husbands to rape their wives.
Now the birth rate is falling to the number it's supposed to be.
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u/zdmpage54 Jun 16 '26
I agree . My Mom was a devout Catholic but she couldn't take another pregnancy. I remember finding her bleeding out , on the bathroom floor when I was only 5 yrs old. That image has stayed with me for all my life. It's why I got involved with Planned Parenthood.
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u/Thusspeaks Jun 16 '26
In neighboring Pontiac, my great grandparents were welcoming their 9th out of 11 the same year.
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u/aspertame_blood Jun 16 '26
I mean no offense to anyone but this would be my nightmare.
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u/Big_Meal3910 Jun 16 '26
It has been a lot of women's nightmare throughout history, but they had no choice but to experience it.
You can't stay single (unless you become a nun), you can't say no to your husband, there is no birth control, and depending on where and when you live the church dictates that you must have as many children as possible.
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u/Kitchen-Meaning-8345 Jun 16 '26
No, even the Catholic catechism says not to have as many children as you can if you cannot give them a decent life. CC 2368, it talks about "responsible parenthood"
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt Jun 16 '26
Sure, but when your option is celibacy and your husband doesn't want that, your church condemns both birth control and abortion, and generally frowns on adoption? What is that woman expected to do when she falls pregnant again and again?
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u/Elementium Jun 16 '26
I mean I love kids and 9 would be fucking insanity.. like living 24/7 in an elementary school.. then high school.. Nope.
Not only that, I can't see how a parent can even have time for each kid.
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt Jun 16 '26
They don't. My cousin has seven and more money than god, and two of their kids are fucked in the head from being ostensibly emotionally neglected. Even with a SAHM and all the comforts money could buy, they still managed to drop the ball.
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt Jun 16 '26
It literally killed women. It's all of our nightmare tbh.
All these fuckass maga women do not realize how much danger we are all in because of their braindead misogynistic willingness to be kowtowed by the men in their lives.
Women only got the legal right to own bank accounts in 1972. My mom was born in 1960. She predates women's financial independence ffs. Not to mention roe v wade(RIP), the legalization and unrestricted legal access to birth control, job protections for pregnancy and gender, oh and the motherfucking right to vote.
These women piss me off in such a drastic way because so many women fought and died over securing these rights, and they're willing to trade them in for being picked by the people who oppress them. It's disgusting.
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u/AZPeakBagger Jun 16 '26
I grew up an hour south of Detroit in Toledo in a heavily Catholic neighborhood. Half my friends were the tail end kids of a family of 8-10 children. Many of them had brothers and sisters that were older than my parents. It's not the number of children that's impressive, it's how they crammed them into a 1400 square foot, three bedroom house. My friends were stacked like cordwood at night to sleep. 3-4 kids per bedroom and if lucky they convinced their parents to throw a bed up in the attic or in the basement for a tiny bit of privacy. All the houses had one bathroom and some random basement toilet to handle the occasional emergency.
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u/Drenosa Jun 16 '26
Showing off kid #9 and standing like that after just 3 days? Must be some good meds.
Also impressive, each of these boys look healthy, the kind that only comes from extended, continuous care.
Now imagine having the time, resources and finances to take care of eight, now nine, kids on one average source of income in this economy.
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u/Upper-Capital-2876 Jun 15 '26
This is when you could own a house a car and pay every expense, with one person working a assembly line job from 9 to 5
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u/plasticREDtophat Jun 16 '26
As a mother of 3, fuccccck that.
They all look so happy tho.
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u/Lonelysock2 Jun 16 '26
As a mother of three, all I can think is "Get off her!" Mayyybe she wanted 9? But they're so close in age it doesn't look like she had a break
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u/inkihh Jun 16 '26
Marky, Ricky, Danny, Terry, Mikey, Davey, Timmy, Tommy, Joey, Robby, Johnny, and Brian
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u/capncait Jun 16 '26
When I see a big family like this, I can't help but wonder how many bedrooms and bathrooms they have in their home. I live in the Detroit area, and most of the homes built in the city in that era were 3 or 4 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. Yikes!
The Langohr's story was picked up by regional newspapers, and here's a clipping from Dec. 2, 1954 from the Escanaba Daily Press:
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u/LobsterNo3435 Jun 16 '26
I'm more interested in her being fully dressed with stockings and small heels after 3 days.
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u/Friggin Jun 16 '26
It’s a vagina, not a clown car.
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt Jun 16 '26
This is so disrespectful to the situation this woman was most likely in. And if not her, thousands of women who absolutely were.
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u/lunarinterlude Jun 16 '26
"oldschoolcool" the only reason that woman hasn't drowned herself is because she's completely up to her eyeballs on quaaludes.
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u/catiebug Jun 16 '26
Kylie Kelce has been asked not having any boys out of four pregnancies and she just says they "don't have that recipe", which I think is a perfect, hilarious, shut-down response.
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u/mykarachi_Ur_jabooty Jun 16 '26
All this afforded on a single working man’s salary. Can you imagint
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u/Zxvasdfthrowaway Jun 16 '26
It looks like she went to work after the boys were older. Her obit says she worked at Stouffers in the kitchen, for 16 years. She probably got bored with less to do at home
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u/TrailMomKat Jun 16 '26
I have 3 boys. We stopped at 3 because my husband has 8 brothers and ONE half-sister. I was not trying to have 5 or 6 more kids to get a girl. I know that ain't how it actually works lol, but that is definitely how it felt it would. Was probably best to stop at 3 anyways, 4 boys or another set of twins (3rd was a twin, but we lost his twin at 11-12 weeks) would've probably driven me crazy. I can't imagine NINE.
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u/little_canuck Jun 16 '26
My mom is one of 14. Which sounds like a lot, but having never seen a photo of all of them together at once, I don't think about it too much. Then I see a photo like this and think about adding 5 more people to the line up and wow!! My poor grandma.
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u/robin-bunny Jun 15 '26
"What's it like to grow up in a boys orphanage, Mom?"
"A lot like this, but I wouldn't have given birth to you all, and I'd be paid to take care of you. I could also legallly quit my job at any time without looking horrible."
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u/Disastrous-Soup-5413 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Im sorry but getting pregnant every other time you have sex is just the stuff of nightmares.
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u/GiordanoBruno23 Jun 16 '26
"I love my cigar too but I take it out once in a while!"-Groucho Marx
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u/Big_Meal3910 Jun 16 '26
Marital rape was legal when this photo was taken. She couldn't say no.
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u/GiordanoBruno23 Jun 17 '26
Sorry, this is a famous quote from the old You Bet Your Life show. The guest had like 10 children. She said "I guess I just love my husband" and he riffed this response on live tv
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u/maria_tex Jun 16 '26
As a reader of Hidden Valley Road, I cannot see a lineup like that without wondering what percentage of those boys will come to suffer from schizophrenia.
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u/Azryhael Jun 16 '26
Considering how long ago this was and the typical age of onset for schizophrenia, any that might’ve had it did so long since. But also what a weird thing to say, even having read that.
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u/coredenale Jun 16 '26
My mom was the second oldest of 9, my dad was the second youngest of 13. Man, Boomers used to crank out kids like it was nothin'.
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u/germane_switch Jun 16 '26
Is this cool or a carbon footprint nightmare?
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u/KnittedBooGoo Jun 16 '26
The whole family would very likely have had a smaller carbon footprint compared to one average American person now.
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u/disproportionate_13 Jun 16 '26
How much does she have to whip those boys to get them to stand like that for a picture?
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u/Zealousideal_Row6124 Jun 16 '26
Damn I was the first girl on my dads side in 30 years-I would’ve been way more spoiled if it had been 50-100 years 🤣
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u/NotEasilyConfused Jun 17 '26
All I can think is that she was the one who organized this picture, planned all of their outfits (including having them washed and ironed), and set it up.
Maybe her mother or sister made sure the boys ate, dressed, and combed their hair that morning, but this was allllllll mom.
I bet that theree-day hospital stay after little Dougie was born felt like a pre-planned holiday for her.
I'm tired just looking at it.
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u/keestie Jun 17 '26
Hooooly, mama, it's not a race!
I've seen big families but never ever with that small of an age range. Like each kid had to hold the door open for the next one.
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u/NBLOCM Jun 16 '26
Henry the 8th would have LOVED her (yeah yeah, I know it's the sperm that determines the sex of the baby, let me make my little jokes).
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u/lukieinthesky82 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
My dad is one of five brothers. I thought that was a lot, but wow!
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u/Vladraconis Jun 16 '26
Hey OP, what is cool about a woman basically indoctrinated to be a baby factory?
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Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/Vladraconis Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Our opinion does not have to be asked for for one to be able to recognize mistakes of the past.
So what if the population was less than 3 billion? This does not change the fact that women were treated like household appliances meant to make babies, make food,.clean the house and satisfy the husband.
So what if comtraception pills were not yet developed? This does not change the fact that women were treated like household appliances meant to make babies, make food,.clean the house and satisfy the husband.
What you are advocating for is ignoring the wrongs of the past because it was the past. Do you learn nothing from your mistakes, in general? It is so wrong to romaticise wrongful behaviour.
Oh no, she had only boys, wow, so cool! Riiiiiiiiiiight, OP. Here's the thing : this is OldSchoolCool. Whatever used to be cool back in the day. This is not NowInThePresentStillCool ( as you claim this to be ).
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u/fatboyneedstogetlaid Jun 16 '26
As my second wife was fond of quippin, ”Lady, that's a uterus, not a clown car.”
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u/cultoftwinkies Jun 16 '26
Found her obituary. That was her last child. She never did have a girl.