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F there are any two men In this wide world whs
should meet and present each othrr proper
greetings and mutual felicitations It la surely
Theodore Roosevelt of Washington and Oy liter
Bay and Charles Kushnlk of Eden. Wis.
President Roosevelt is renowned far and wide
as the strenuous advocate of the anti-race
suicide propaganda. Mr. tvusnnix is not so
greatly renowned, but Just the same these two men should
meet and compare notes. For while Roosevelt Is by word
of mouth and pen adjuring; his fellow men In this, our land
of the free and small families, to raise many children to
brighten their homes. Kushnlk Is and has been for the last
twenty-four years following the president's precepts to the
last letter.
If President Roosevelt some bright Sunday afternoon
would drive out to the little Kushnlk farm, which lies snug
gled out of the way of the main road amid the hills of Pond
du Lac eounty. near Eden, he would see a sight that would
gladden his philoprogenitive heart At first. If he was un
wise as to the state and number of the Kushnlk family,
he would surely think that he had run Into a country party
or social by mistake. He would see sixteen sturdy, robust,
country children and young folk playing and sitting In the
front yard. Eight of them would he boys and eight girls.
They would range In age from the staid young married
woman of 24 to a romping boy of 7, and If any one was at
band who knows tha Kushnlk family he might explain to
mm to mx&,
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little brighter, a little happier, and take a little of the work
off the old folk So many children a trouble? Neln, neln,
Mein Herr!"
Mr. Kushnlk corroborates all that his wife says abctrt
the many benefits snd Joys to be derived from 4 large fam
ily. He says and listen, you husbands and wives who some
times sit up nights worrying how to bring up the two ot
three that you call your own that the family problem la
qne that la easily solved. ' According to him the large family
tr Its own solution, and the larger the better. " It Is not
hard, and It Is not so expensive as some people might think
to bring up and keep a family as big as ours," says he. "I
came here to Fond uu Lac county twenty-two years ago.
My wife and I were both young then, as we are still. We
had two little daughters then and money enough to buy the
twenty acres of land where the house now stands. That
was all the land we had for a long time. The family grew
Increased and multiplied. The first wing came when the
family numbered six and the old nous was outgrown. It la
comprised of three rooms and marks the progress of tb
family from small to tmdlum site.
Apparently the home with this wing added sufficed for
several years, for the wing that grew out on the opposite
side Is. by all evidences of the eyes, at least ten years newer.
Ihls was built when there were ten little Kvishnlka to house
and the family was mentioned about the countryside at
" pretty big." But fame more than local was to come to the
family, and the last wing on the house, which cropped out
from the rear, attests to the day when Its numbers were
sixteen. Potatoes averaged 130 bushels to the acre last year
on the farm of Charles Kushnlk, and the market price was
f I, so the house has recently experienced a complete coat ot
paint, which makes the wings lock all of the same age, but
the neighbors driving past will point to them as notches
in the progress of the big family.
"There's the six wing," they say. Indicating with their
whips the first addition. "Then there's the ten, and behind
Is the sixteen wing. Charlle'a family grew so fast he didn't
have time to build a new house, so he Just slapped on an
other wing whenever they grew short on hedrooma." Ann
"Charlie." seeing the motion of the whip, comprehends and
miles happily.
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Ight along at the rate of one every year, but we managed
to make enough out of the twenty acre farm to support them.
Income Increases with Family. I
" How did we do It? Ha, ha! It la not hard. It does not
cost much more to keep two young children than It does one
when they are all good and healthy. With the advent o
each child, of course, our expenses were Increased aome, but
all the time the farm was beginning to produce more, too.
"As the children grew larger of course It began to cost
more to keep them. There were more pairs of shoes to buy,
more clothes, and more food. When they got old enough to
40 to school there were books to buy. Sometimes there. were
books and new clothes for twelve children to be bought at
one time when the school opened In the fall, but we alw.ws
managed to buy them and also managed to keep the children
in school. It cost much more than the average family.'
But it Is In the autumn, after the summer's harvest is
done, after the corn Is cut and shocked ready for husking,
and the potatoes In the ground are clamoring to be di
before the big frosts come, that the advantages of a big
family, at least on a Wisconsin farm, are to be best underi
stood.
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Not Worried by Lack of Help. .
There Is a twenty acre field of potatoes to be dug and
picked. It takes a man a day to dig half an acre of po
tatoes. The farmer must pay 2 a day and board for every
rr.an whom he gets to help. When potatoes ripen late the
farmer with a couple of thousand dollars' worth of them In
the ground gets gray headed worrying about getting gooa
l.elp and enough of It. Hut Charles Kushnlk of Eden wor
ries not In this, the strenuous season for the Wisconsin
farmer. Thi Sunday .Tribi-nb man's first Introduction to
Mm and his family was the sight of five sturdy boys, five
pretty girls, and two cheerful adulta putting a hole Into the
twenty acre field at a bewildering rate. The five boys and
the father were digging and the five girls followed, putting
the tubers Into baskets as fast as they were taken from the
ground. The mother walked about the field and beamed
generously on them all. In another part of the big field
another son had already started on the fall plowing.
" You see how It Is that we could raise such a large
family without any trouble and on such a small farm," said
the father proudly. " I keep all the profits of the land In the
family. It doesn't cost a cent for any of the work on the
farm, and the work is done much better than any hlrea
men would do it. Look at these boys and girls. Does It
look as If they suffered any from lack of care and attention
because they are part of such a number. No, they are all
healthy and my wife and I are still young and strong. The
farm here is a good one and the older children have gooo
positions or have married well."
So It would seem that the family problem Is no problem
at all. but simply a foolish chimera that people have con
jured up for their own disturbance. Mr. Kushnlk should
know whereof he speaks, and he says so. All that Is neces
sary, apparently, Is to arrange that the children be all
strong and healthy, learn to love them and have a farm,
preferably a potato farm, where the activities of the young
may be utilized with due profit.
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the Illustrious visitor that this was Sunday afternoon and
the KuBhnlk children were all at home today. 1
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Proud of Family Rosier.
Then Papa and Mamma Kushnlk would come out and
proudly toll oft the long list of names and ages of then
happy offspring on their fingers. These same names ana
ng's tell a story that Is replete with human interest. The
roster Is:
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Oirls. Age.
Lulu '. 24
Etta 23
Elisabeth 22
Minnie 21
Anna..
Martha
Emma 14
Pauline, 7
, Twins 17
Boys. Age.
Charles ...19
Frank 16
Ernest 15
Herman 13
Paul 12
Henry 11
Louis 7
John 6
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If there are any other fathers or mothers In this country
who can show a list of their own children to equal this
Charles Kushnlk and his good wife, Elizabeth, would like
to know of them. If there are any families who are worried
and troubled over the burden of two or three children they
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should list to the story of the Kusnnlk family and the wise
words of the heads of It.
Mr. Kushnlk and his wife have found little of the "woe
and trials that are declared to be an Inevitable part of the
upbringing of a large family. They have reared one of the
largest and certainly the most unique family In the land,
and they are not sorry for It. Sorry for It? On the con
trary, they are glad and happy because Providence so boun
tlfuly endowed them In the matter of progeny.
Mr. Kushnlk Is a small man, a sturdy little German of
the kind who came to this country from the fatherland and
settled on a homestead When the middle west was consider
ably less thickly populated than It is now and by sheer per
severance and hard toil wrought farms and homes for them
selves In the wilderness. The mother of the remarkable
flock that bears his name Is, on the other hand, of the large.
German type of house frau, and the fifty years to whlcn
she owns have passed lightly over her head, and she Is to
day possessed of the fat, red cheeks and the high spirits
that onf e probably marked her as the belle of some little
German village.
Every Addition Brightens Home.
She agrees heartily with her husband that a multiplicity
of chiNren Is a Joy and pleasure to the heart forever,
" Trouble to raise a large family?'' she repeats In answer
to a question. "Where Is the trouble? Is it not . so that
many hands make light work and many kinder make lignt
In the home? Surely, no one will say that they are not glad
tc- have one little darling to brighten their home. If one
child makes the home so much happier does it not follow
that two should make It twice as nappy, and sixteen eight
times as happy as two? We have, found it so. Every one
of these sixteen Is Jut as dear to Ul aj If be or she were the
enly one. Every ons of them hjjlps to make tha bom a
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- Here IswTTera the big family -began to belp. I fcou' I
then and can now work my farm better, plant more actew, ,
and care for them better than any other farmer in Jhe
county, and never had to pay one cent for hired help, fho
children did It. As they grew up they learned to do .
work of the 'farm and do it well. My farm looks iiae v
garden In the summer time. There Isn't a foot of the land
which can be broken that Isn't under the, plow and cultl
ated as closely as a man will cultivate a little garden la' ,
his back yard. Other men might have bought more land ;i :
they were In my place, but I know it Is better the way we '
bave It. 'k
" That Is how we managed to care for our big family so '
easily. Of course. It might have "been harder In a city. Hera
the more help you can bave on a farm the more money you
can make out of It. Every year one of our children got big
enough to start to work in the field we began to raise more
and better crops. The expenses grew in tbe meanwhile, but
we were always Just a little ahead."
Farmhouse Indicates Family's Growth.
The Kushnlk home is a low, substantial farmhouse. A
close observer can nearly read the Increase and growth oi
the family In Its construction. First there is the original
farmhouse, the little square, unostentatious, one story, four
room styia that farmers first' build when their family Is
small and the funds limited. From each side of thli struc
ture addlUops and wings have grown as the tribe of Kushnis
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