Ancestral Ponderings......The thought of having 16 children in the 1800's is daunting......

As I work on family history, I often find families that I am amazed by.  One recent family had 16 children.  When my husband and I first got married we talked about how many children we would like to have had.  The thought of having 5 or 6 children at first sounded fun.  And yet we are happy to have been blessed with two, and two is probably the amount we can afford, and can handle in this day and age.

And yet here is the man and woman who met and over the years had 16 children.(The photo above is of the wife and one of the daughters)  In the census records I  find that they lived in a four room house.  I can not imagine living in a four room house with 16 children. When we moved out to Utah, we lived in a small apartment.  To me it was cozy at first, but the four of us by the time we moved needed space.  I can't imagine what these children must have felt like always having to share a room with someone.  I now see how spoiled my children are.
   I can not imagine cooking for that many people.  I have a hard time cooking for four people. My children are always complaining about the frozen dinner I've prepared.  And I assume that much of what they ate they probably grew also.  Grocery stores filled with semi homemade items were not around back in their days.
  I wonder about the daily chores and think how did this woman take care of such a large family.  I'm sure the older children had to have helped out and probably got jobs at young ages too.  I would love to see more than census records, and a few photo's.  I'd love to hear stories of what family life was for this big family.  Did the children dream of the day they got to move out and be on their own, or did they have a close relationship?  Did the older children dread the fact another baby was on the way or were they excited to learn of the new addition?
It is fun to wonder about those from the past.  Perhaps someday I'll meet these souls on the other side and here their stories.  But for now I just have to be happy with pondering on what life for them might have been like.....
G.G.