Andrew Suiter, from Ireland, and his wife Hannah Green Suiter, from the U.S., had seven children, three girls and four boys, and then the oldest daughter died in 1845, age 15. They had two more daughters, bringing the number of living children to eight. And then in one month, in 1851, seven of those children died. They ranged in age from 19 to 3 months. Only one son was left alive, Robert, age 9. The Suiters had two more children, a boy born in 1853, and a girl born three years later who lived only one day. So after giving birth 11 times, Hannah Suiter was left with only two sons.
Andrew Suiter died in 1863, age 56, and Hannah died in 1879, age 68. And then Robert, the only son who survived the epidemic or whatever it was that killed seven of his siblings, died two years later at age 39. I looked up his death record; he died of suicide.
The one remaining son, Andrew Jr., appears on the next census in 1881, age 28, a clerk, living in what looks like a boarding house. The last of eleven children, carrying on alone. I haven't found a marriage or death record for him. He doesn't appear on the family headstone, and I don't know if it's because he moved away or because there was no one left to bury him. It breaks my heart.
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