Quincy, Illinois The birth of their 100th grandchild was recently celebrated by a couple from western Illinois.
There are 53 grandkids, 46 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild belonging to Quincy couple Leo and Ruth Zanger. The number 100 was reached on April 8 with the birth of great-grandson Jaxton Leo to grandson Austin and his wife Ashleigh.
The Quincy Herald-Whig is told by Leo Zanger that “the good Lord has just kept sending them.” According to him, the family “could start our own town.”
Ruth Zanger asserts, “There’s always room for one more.”
After 59 years of marriage, the Zangers had 12 children between 1956 and 1984. When Joe, the youngest at thirty-one, was born, he had already been an uncle ten times. The Herald-Whig says that in addition to Joe, there’s Linda (the eldest), Greg, Debbie, David, Donna, Steve, Mike, Daniel, Ernie, Matt, and Chuck.
The family resides mostly in the Quincy region. They rent a church hall for their gatherings, and they need to buy 10 turkeys or 50 pounds of ham to feed everyone.
In 1975, Linda and her husband Kenny Hardin welcomed their first child, Jeannine, into the world, marking Leo and Ruth’s first granddaughter.
