WHEN Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and great-great-grandchildren that, by her family’s count, she could claim perhaps 2,000 living descendants...
...Mrs. Schwartz gave birth 18 times, but lost two children in the Holocaust and one in a summer camp accident...
Mrs. Schwartz was a member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, whose couples have nine children on average and whose ranks of descendants can multiply exponentially. But even among Satmars, the size of Mrs. Schwartz’s family is astonishing...Her descendants range in age from a 75-year-old daughter named Shaindel to a great-great-granddaughter born Feb. 10 named Yitta in honor of Mrs. Schwartz and a great-great-grandson born Feb. 15 who will be named at a bris on Monday...
“Just keep me in your heart,” she used to say. “If you leave a child or grandchild, you live forever.”
My neighbor's great-aunt, a Krishevsky, died three months ago in Meah Shearim, also a Satmar, and she had just over 1000 as she had but 10 children.
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