The holidays usually means having a full house, but for one southern Alberta family, the house is now just a little more full.
Callie Elizabeth Grace Marsh is the newest addition to the Marsh family, marking six generations of women in one unbroken line.
“We had pictures of the six generations right in the hospital,” Callie’s mother, 20-year-old Alisa Marsh, said.
“They were all excited.”
Callie was born Friday, Oct. 7 at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, Alta.
There to welcome Callie to the world was her mother Alisa, new grandmother 39-year-old Amanda Cormier, great-grandmother 59-year-old Grace Couturier, great-great-grandmother 75-year-old Gwen Shaw, and the matriarch, great-great-great grandmother 96-year-old Vera Sommerfeld.
Sommerfeld became the proud head of six generations of daughters, five of which were first-born children.
“We all came up to the hospital and I had held her up there and it was just absolutely wonderful,” Sommerfeld said.
“She is just such a beautiful girl.”
Sommerfeld said she could barely contain her excitement while waiting for baby Callie.
“We were waiting for her right from the day they were married.”
Sommerfeld, born in 1920, hails from Saskatchewan but settled in Lethbridge in 2009.
Many wonder what Sommerfeld’s secret to living a long life is, including her own doctor.
“The doctor says, ‘what do you suppose keeps that?’ and my son says, ‘she has two drinks of rum everyday.”
The Guinness world record for the most generations in an unbroken chain is seven, but the family tells Global News, it’s simply not in their genes to back down from a challenge.
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