1920s Family Demonstrates How To Fit 13 Kids Into One Car

#1 The Noonan Family

The Noonan family of Lawrence, Massachusetts gained local attention at some point in 1925 for their large size. In the '20s, the average family had 2.3 children, similar to today. The family was so talked about that Boston Herald-Traveler photographer Leslie Jones was sent out to capture images of them.

#2 Irish Immigrants

The family included The father, Maurice Noonan, who was an Irish immigrant who ran a local pub, The Morning Glory, and also worked in forming unions in the wool industry. His wife Mabel, 10 girls, two boys, and a baby made up the clan of 13, which was popular for a family in Ireland.

#3 Enduring Love Of Family

The photos show the enduring love that families have for one another no matter the time period, but they also show how drastically things have changed! While it's cute to see the trends like the silent movie pinned back hairdo on the girls and the classic shoes, stacking a family of 13 in a car without a roof or seatbelts is not.

#4 A Set Of Chores And Rituals

Needless to say, 11 children is a lot of kids to raise! It probably meant a lot of sharing, hard work, dedication, and hand-me-down clothes and shoes. But they seem to have made things work. Polishing everyone's shoes to make them last, for example, was no small undertaking. But like with any family, they had a system for just about everything they did in their daily routine.

#5 Loading Up The Automobile

But the system they used for going on a road trip was the best of all. Not many families at the time had a car, but the Noonan's had one, and they came up with a pretty unique way of fitting the entire family inside of it for travelling. First, they piled the tallest children in the very back rumble seat, then the slightly smaller in height in front of them, with the little ones sitting at their feet.

#6 Sporting Around The Community As A Family

The times were different then, and cars were considerably slower. Still, let's hope this was not a common practice because it looks extremely dangerous. The mother is holding the infant in her arms in the front seat since car seats for babies was not a thing back then. They didn't even have seatbelts, so let's hope they were never going very far from home.

#7 They Always Managed

But while they might have all been able to fit into one car, they couldn't fit under one umbrella. But that didn't stop them all from trying since this family seemed to have it all together.

Sadly, just four years after the newspaper did this photo story, the mother, Mabel Metcalf Noonan, passed away, along with their youngest child, leaving Maurice to raise 12 children on his own. His love for his family pulled them through.