State's Huskiest Baby
Tips Scales to 16 Lbs.

Mother and Son Doing Well After Battle by Doctors
To Bring Infant to Life After Birth By NAT S. FINNEY
Staff Writer for The Star. Graceville, Minn. – Baby Boy Schmitz, weight at birth 15 pounds, 15.2 ounces, height 24½ inches, head 16 inches, chest 17 inches, across shoulders 8 inches, July 16, 1936, Western Minnesota hospital. In such laconic scientific terms, without a word about Mrs. Veronica Schmitz, the mother, medicine records the birth of the largest baby ever born alive in Minnesota – as far as a day's check of doctors and records shows. Today Helen Wilson, superintendent of the hospital at which Baby Boy Schmitz was born, reports baby and mother "coming along just fine." But when Miss Wilson tells you that, there's something about the way she says it that reminds you of somebody cheering his head off in whispers. STORK ARRIVES TWO WEEKS LATE
TO DELIVER BABY BOY SCHMITZ There's a whale of a story of motherhood behind the dry-as-dust medical reports, the professional calm of Miss Wilson' s words, the simple statement that Baby Boy took six ounces of "nursery mixture" this morning, hollered his head off to get it, and apparently thought it was swell when he got it. It's not a man's story. It's a woman's story. This correspondent asks the kindly indulgence of all mothers as he tries to tell the story. Baby Boy Schmitz didn't arrive on time. He is what doctors call a nine-and-one-half months baby. When he didn't come on time Mrs. Schmitz' doctors got worried – later on in the story you'll understand why. So Thursday they gave Mrs. Schmitz some medicine which starts a mother's labor. Labor began at 6 p.m. The baby was born at 9:30 p.m. The doctors and the nurses tell you that; but when you look at the records of the hospital you discover that three doctors and three nurses attended the birth of Baby Boy Schmitz. THREE DOCTORS, THREE NURSES
GET ON THE JOB IN A HURRY The doctor in charge (you can't use his name because of the ethics of the medical profession) is a tall, strong chap. He started the delivery with one nurse assisting him, Miss Rose Boylan. Half an hour later he called desperately for another doctor and another nurse. They came as fast as they could. Another half an hour and an emergency call for another doctor and another nurse was sent out. They came. Then for an hour and one-half the six of them worked to bring Baby Boy Schmitz into the world alive. Mothers will understand that. There isn't much that a man can say. When Baby Boy Schmitz was born he wasn't, properly speaking, alive. Life was there, ready to start, but it couldn't start by itself. The tall doctor who had charge put it plainly this way: "They have to cry, you know. You have to make them cry." So the tall doctor, tired, half-prostrate from the extreme prairie heat in the delivery room, went to work. He worked for an hour and one-half to get life to really start in that great baby – the largest ever born in Minnesota alive. He used the prone pressure method of artificial respiration. "I breathed for the baby with my hands," he put it. "You place your hands on the baby's back like this, and press. Then you release the hands quickly. You keep that up until the baby breathes for itself. It was hard because my arms were so tired." He used hot and cold water baths – quick changes between hot and cold, calculated to shock Baby Boy Schmitz into life.

SO BIG: The Minneapolis Star returned to the Schmitz farm in July 1937 to torture the poor birthday boy by propping him up on a scale for this photo. USES ETHER BATHS,
ALSO SPANKS BABY He used ether baths. The instant evaporation of ether gives the baby a sensation of extreme, burning cold. He used an injection of a drug called coramine. He spanked Baby Boy Schmitz. Slapped him. Jounced him. And after an hour and one-half life took a firm grip of Baby Boy Schmitz. Life's clutch stopped slipping, so to speak. Baby Boy Schmitz settled down to some steady crying. Then slept, breathing peacefully. Then woke. Then howled. "You get to know that howl," Miss Wilson chuckled. Then when she saw this writer didn't get it at all, she said: "Men are pretty dumb. What I mean is that you get to know by a baby's crying when it's hungry." It was just two and one-half hours after Baby Boy Schmitz' clutch on life stopped slipping that he woke up hungry. "You can believe it or not," the tall doctor said, "but he took four ounces of nourishment – nursery mixture we call it. YOUNG HUSKY EATS
AND THEN SLEEPS "I stopped worrying about Baby Boy Schmitz right then. He has eaten and slept like a daisy since then." This nursery mixture is just high grade corn syrup, water and milk. Miss Wilson couldn't bother to say in what proportions. "Every mother knows about it," she said. All this work over Baby Boy Schmitz leaves Mrs. Schmitz pretty much out of things. When Baby Boy was delivered, Mrs. Schmitz went to sleep. "It wasn't as bad as you might think," she smiled Friday. "I think the twins were worse, and the boy that died – that was much worse, oh, much." Mrs. Schmitz, sandy-haired and hazel-eyed, shook hands and smiled at callers. She's a real woman, a big woman. She's five feet 11 inches tall and "weighed" 190 pounds before the baby was born. She has a warm, grand smile, and a soft, strong voice. There is about her both twinkling good humor and deep, warm calm. She's 37, and this was the fifteenth time she has been in child bed. MOTHER ANXIOUS TO
GET BACK TO GARDEN "I'm tired, of course. And this hot weather bothers me. But I really feel perfectly all right. The only thing that worries me is that I've got to get back to my garden. This hot weather has spoiled so many things, and we've got to have vegetables to can and cabbage to put down." Later Mr. Schmitz said that last year Mrs. Schmitz put up 850 quarts of vegetables and two barrels of kraut for the winter. And most of it's gone. It takes a lot to feed 12 children and a baby, and the Schmitz family, what with conditions that affect farmers with 200 acres of land in western Minnesota, doesn't have even pennies to kick around. The farm is near Dumont, Minn. WORRIES ABOUT SKUNKS
GETTING HER CHICKENS Mrs. Schmitz does a job that would make many a woman faint just at the description of it. She has – now – 13 children to care for. Her kitchen garden looks to be a little more than one acre, and she and the youngster care for it. She has a large flock of chickens – "they are mighty important these days," she says, "and I hope the skunks don't get the chicks while I'm away." Mrs. Schmitz' home has some conveniences – not many. It would seem desperately few to city mothers. And then, to top it all off, Mrs. Schmitz helps her husband in the field when the rush of harvesting is on. That is, she has in the past; and she sees no reason why she shouldn't this autumn. "Not for harvesting," she laughs, "but later. I'm all right, you know." Jacob Schmitz, six-feet-four-inches in his sox, lean and tanned, just turning 40, denies the size of the babies comes from his side of the family. THINKS BABY'S SIZE
FROM MOTHER'S FAMILY "Unusual births are in Veronica's family; I mean in Mrs. Schmitz' family. She was part of one the like of which I never heard. She was a twin. She was born at nine months. The other twin was born at six months. I've talked to a lot of people and I never heard of a case like that, did you?" Jacob Schmitz explains his wife's maiden name was Veronica Cordie, and she was born near Richmond, Minn. "Her father was French and her mother German. The red hair (he patted Eugene's red top as he said it) and the freckles come from her side, and I guess unusual births do, too." Then Mr. Schmitz tells you about the twins. They are, barring only his strapping youngest son, who won't be named till Mrs. Schmitz is ready, the apple of his eye. "The twins weighed 11 pounds and 15 ounces for Vernon and 9 pounds and 15 ounces for Veronica. That's pretty near a record, too. We even got a letter from President Roosevelt congratulating us on the twins." OTHER CHILDREN ALL
WERE BIG WHEN BORN The twins and Baby Boy aren't the end of the unusual birth story, either. Before the twins were born a baby boy that died weighed 14 pounds. The one doctor that tried to deliver the child at the Schmitz farm couldn't get help there in time, and the baby died. Then there's Elizabeth, now 3, who weighed 12 pounds at birth; and Katherine, now 6, weighed 11 pounds – a pretty big baby girl. The rest of the living children are Laura, 8; Louise, 9; Eugene, 11; Reinhard, 12; Donald, 13; Vivian, 14; Valeria, 15, and Victor, 18. Seven of them are in school at Dumont. Victor, the eldest, hopes to get into a CCC camp this fall. Mr. Schmitz and his wife regard their family as nothing unusual. The country around Graceville is pretty new country, and large families aren't unusual in new country. "We have our troubles taking care of them all," Mr. Schmitz says. "But they're all perfectly healthy. Never have to call a doctor. "For a while in 1934 when we lost our stock because of the drouth, the going was pretty bad. I guess we'll make out this year, but it's pretty bad now."

SO, SO BIG: The Schmitz family gathered before the lens of a Minneapolis Star photographer in July 1937. Top, from left, were Mrs. Schmitz (holding Veronica), Vivian, Valeria, Donald, Reinhart, Eugene and Mr. Schmitz (holding Vernon). Just behind Jacob, from left, were Louise, Laura, Katherine and Betty. At least, that's what the handwritten caption on the back of the photo says.