It's Fun To Have Six Children

Marcia Stovall

Here, Marcia personalizes an article by Aubrey of the same name, concerning adventures (and misadventures) due to having six children. He apparently wrote the first draft of the article about 1950, and modified it occasionally before it finally appeared in the March 1958 issue of the American Baptist publication, “Hearthstone, the Magazine for the Christian Home."

Dad mentioned a time in 1946 when he had all five (at the time) children in church without mother to supervise. It seems Marcia, aged three, and Millie, aged five, had slipped away from the nursery to sit in big church. Suddenly, Dad was distracted when Marcia took out a toy pistol and began aiming at fellow worshipers. Dad quickly retrieved the gun. Only moments later, Dad heard the thud of a hundred pennies falling under the pews. Millie had a small purse filled with pennies, and she decided then was the time to count them! As luck would have it, the pennies fell to the floor. Before Dad knew what was happening, Millie and Marcia were down on the floor, crawling under the pews to retrieve the pennies! Dad said that he learned something that day, but not from the sermon!

Then there was the time we had dinner guests, and Millie said to Mom, “Mother, you didn’t clean this corn. There are hairs on it!” Dad had suffered from an asthma attack, and one day he heard one of his children saying, “My dad has been suffering from amnesia.”

Many years ago we had a maid named Ruby who lived with us. One day as Dad kissed his children goodbye, Nancy told him, “Wait, you forgot to kiss Ruby!”

Dad enjoyed learning new words and phrases his six children coined. After eating a banana, one of us said, “My hands are all nannery!” Another word one of us used, which he liked, was “amazable.”

One Halloween Dad took Suzie “spooking.” At the breakfast table the next morning, Suzie prayed, “Lord, help all the ghosts and hobgoblins to become Christians!”

Shortly after Suzie was born, Millie was asked to return thanks at the breakfast table. She prayed, “Dear God, when we have another baby, let it be a girl.” Both Mom and Dad were surprised and asked Millie, “You already have a new baby sister. Do you want God to give you another sister?” Millie explained, “Well, it’s like this. We asked God for a little brother, and He sent a sister. So maybe if we ask for a sister, we’ll get a little brother!”

Dad concluded his article by saying it was fun to be the father of six children. I would like to add that it surely was fun being one of those six children, growing up under the guidance of our wonderful Dad and Mom!

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