Update [2006-6-3 17:45:38 by mrboma]: Click here for the CBS News story

My parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this weekend. Not a huge deal, but still a great accomplishment in my opinion. Now consider that my family is one of the largest in the U.S., and this becomes a story for the media. How big is my family? I am one of 16 children, ten boys, six girls – all the same mom and dad and all single births – ranging in age from 49 to 26. Now top it off with the fact that this will be the first time the whole family has gotten together since 1981 (photo from that occasion is in the extended text. Still need more? This day was almost prevented when my Dad was literally RUN OVER BY A CITY BUS in 1989 (see the press release in the extended text).

The coverage started on Thursday with this article in the local freebee, The Grunion Gazette. The larger locals, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and LA Times, are supposed to be running stories on Saturday or Sunday. We are being interviewed by KCAL/CBS on Friday (to be played on the noon news and maybe the later newscasts if it is a slow news day). KCAL/CBS and KTLA are also sending cameras to the anniversary party on Saturday, so we should be on the Saturday evening news as well. LA Family Magazine will be running a story next month some time.

To read the press release and see the 1981 photo, please proceed across the bump.

NEWS RELEASE

Contact:
Jerome Santucci
562-961-7578
jeromesantucci@earthlink.net

LONG BEACH COUPLE TO CELEBRATE 50 YEARS OF MARRIAGE AND SIXTEEN CHILDREN

Long Beach, Calif., May 18, 2006 – Ken and Colette Santucci, Long Beach residents and parents of sixteen children, will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on June 2.  The couple will renew their vows on June 3 at the same church in which they were originally married in 1956 – St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church in Long Beach.

All sixteen children will be in attendance, marking the first time since 1981 that the entire family has been together.

Ken, originally from New York, and Colette, a California girl, planned to have a dozen children.  They had their first child, a girl, in 1957.  Over the next 23 years, Colette gave birth to fifteen more children, all single births – ten boys and five more girls, with the last born in 1980.

Over the years, the family endured a number of obstacles and hardships.  In July of 1989, Ken was literally run over by a Long Beach Transit bus when he was thrown from his bicycle on the way home from work.  Miraculously, he survived, suffering only a broken pelvis and other minor injuries.  Six months later, he was back on the job at McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing), where he worked for over 40 years as an electrical engineer before retiring in 2003.

In an effort to make more room for the kids, the family built a second story on their Long Beach home, adding five bedrooms and a bathroom. Most of the planning and construction, which lasted from 1972 through mid-1974, was completed by the family themselves, with Ken’s father also helping out.

The Santucci children, who range in ages from 49-26, are (from oldest to youngest): Anna, Susan, Kenneth, Patrick, Theresa, Francis, Paul, Monica, Christopher, David, Peter, Jerome, Mark, Anastacia, Gregory, and Rebecca.