First Posted: 5/9/2014
It was easier getting them to pose last time.
That’s what Theresa McDonald said Friday evening at her Avoca home as she tried to get the 8 of her 9 kids who could make it to pose the same way they did for a Sunday Dispatch Mother’s Day front page photo 30 years ago.
The photo taken Friday appears on page one today.
Getting the family together was nearly as difficult as getting them to pose.
“That’s all we talked about since you called,” Theresa said, referring to a phone call from the Dispatch last Saturday asking her if it were possible to reenact the photo that ran on May 13, 1984.
It was a logistical nightmare, she said, but in the end 8 of Theresa’s children managed to descend on the family home on Chestnut Street in Avoca along with 8 of 9 grandchildren. One was taking an exam at Bloomsburg University, Theresa explained.
Twins Michael and Matthew, soon to be 31, were the easiest to deal with last time when they were just 10 months old, Theresa said. So were Julie who was 3 at the time, Maura, 6 back then, and Raymond, 5. “I just told them to sit,” Theresa said pointing her finger at places around her, “and they sat.”
This time, the kids had fun with their mom. Especially the twins, each of whom weighs a bit more than last time. They feigned sitting on mom’s lap before finally taking spots on the floor near her feet.
Pictured in the latest photo, as indicated on page one, other than Michael and Matthew, are Julie (Wilson), 33, Raymond Andrew, 34, Maura (McDonald), 35, Michele (Kocher), 42, Donna (Napkora), 48, and Theresa (Georgetti), 49. Martin, 37, was unable to make it.
Asked what they remember about the original front page photo, Michele said, “Only all the people in Avoca Deli telling us how beautiful the picture was. My Mom bought all the Dispatches they had.”
“Well, I had to have at least one for each of them,” Theresa said.
Theresa, the former Theresa Starzec, and her husband Raymond, who is battling health issues, will be married 51 years in August. “We met at Avoca high School when we were 15 and we’re still together,” she said. Each is 72.
They are still in the same house, too. “Of course we had to keep adding on and adding on,” Theresa was quick to add.
Since she is the youngest of 8 children, Theresa said having a big family seemed normal. “It was abnormal not to,” daughter Theresa said.
The children recall having a picnic table in the house with benches on either side and eating family meals together all the time. “She’s a fabulous cook,” Maura said. “There was always something freshly baked.”
Her siblings said to ask sister Julie about Mom’s cooking. “Yeah,” she said, “I eat her six nights a week. And the other night I’m at Donna’s.”
“But I make her cook when she comes over,” Donna chimed in.
The kids all went to St. Mary’s school, almost next door, and so they all come home every day for lunch, Theresa said. She was a stay-at-home mom until her husband was injured and then she took a job at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center where she worked for 20 years before retiring.
Son Michael brought up her fabulous biscuits. “Yeah,” daughter Theresa said, “the Moon Rocks.”
“That’s what they call them,” Theresa said. “They’re just baking powder biscuits, but everyone loves them.
“The kids are after me to teach them how to bake, but the recipe for the Moon Rocks is going with me to my grave,” she joked.
Theresa said raising the large family was easier than one might imagine. “The older ones helped with the younger ones,” she said.
“The twins would go on our dates with us,” their sister Theresa said.
“I was engaged to my husband Frank when that first photo was taken,” Donna added. “He’s known Michael and Matthew almost all of their lives. They’re his brothers-in-law but he watched them grow up.”
The family is still close, Theresa said. Son Michael, who lives just a mile away in Dupont, calles 4 or 5 times a day, she added.
The best thing about being in a large family is “we’re never alone,” Maura said.
“No matter what happens,” Julie added, “we all have each other’s back,”
