The same thing happened to Katharina Holzer once a year, every year - for years.

From 1935 to 1939 it happened each of those years. And then she had a one-year break.

And then it began happening every year from 1941 to 1948.

And then she had another one-year break.

And then it happened in 1950, 1951, 1952, 1955 and 1957.

It happened a total of 18 times, this same experience: Giving birth.

Eighteen babies. Two of them, the babies born in 1935 and 1944, would die as infants.

Having the last two babies, 1955 and 1957, almost killed her. Blood transfusions to replace blood lost from hemorrhaging saved her.

"I was pregnant all of the time … most of the time,"said Holzer, 90, who lives in a house north of Bismarck with her husband, Joseph Holzer, 94. Life is slower now, the days spent doing a lot of reading, praying and, occasionally, cooking for just two, now.

The couple lost a 62-year-old son in 1999, but the other 15 children are still alive, ranging in age from 50 to 71. All but two are living in North Dakota.

They married when she was 18, and started a family soon after.

But she said that was what she had always planned to be, a housewife and mom, and was prepared for the job.

Holzer grew up the eldest of 10 children on a farm near Hague, where after the work was done, there was typically more work.

"There was always work," she said.

Or school. She remembers being a good student, the teacher praising her, unless she forgot and spoke German in the school with an English-only rule. She remembers staying in for recess as punishment for her German slips. Hard to keep it straight when her father required his house to be a German language-only environment.

She remembers seeing Joseph Holzer at the Catholic church she attended. And he would become her family's hired man. They dated for two years, married and then she took on her own big-family challenges.

With vigor.

Daughter Kathy Buck, 57, remembers the family would joke that mom didn't know how to walk.

"She always 'ran on her toes,'" Buck said.

Mondays, there was laundry that took all day, in between making three full meals.

Tuesdays, the ironing went on into the late afternoon and included everything, sheets and all, and starch on the collars and cuffs of the white shirts the boys wore to church. Most of their clothes were hand-me-downs, given by a Catholic church that was aware of the large family's ongoing needs and struggles.

A typical family supper - the boys typically eating first, then leaving while the girls washed the dishes for the second shift - would require at least three chickens, 4 pounds of potatoes, a gallon of cream and other dishes. The about five-acre family garden provided much of their food. The family's cows, pigs and chickens made up much of the rest.

Fridays were baking days, during which a dozen loaves of bread would be baked, as well as such items as doughnuts and kuchen. When she baked her angel food cakes, the children were ordered to step lightly. Fat chance.

And when the noise of so many children became too much to take, Holzer would get her broomstick and start to swing, but the 5-foot-1-inch woman was easily overpowered by her herd of growing children. And stymied in her broomstick attempt, she would begin to laugh, Buck remembers.

Saturdays were clean-up days.

When the girls were done working in the house, they were sent outside to help the boys with haying and other farm chores that included milking 60 cows by hand. The boys did much of the farm work while their father was working off the farm as a carpenter.

Buck remembers there was a rare card game, but most days, family members were too tired to have a "mind" for cards.

The only time off the children had was Sunday afternoons after church. They could do whatever they wanted, and most of the time, exhausted by the combination of work on the farm and school, would elect to take naps. If it was nice, there might be a game of softball, with neighbors joining in, Buck said.

Buck does remember the time when her parents were gone from the house and some of her other siblings turned the kitchen floor into an ice skating rink by splashing dishwater on the floor, putting up the chairs, and sliding for the fun of it.

As the kids grew up and left, one might assume there would be some relief.

Buck said she never knew it, until much later, that her mom, each time a grown child left the nest, would go and hide - and then cry.

The German-Russian Holzer family didn't express love physically with hugs and kisses, Buck said. But they knew they were loved in the way their mother would say the word, "child,"when speaking to them, and in other ways, Buck said.

"We were always fed, always clothed, always had a warm house," Buck said.

"She was just always there. We never had to go looking for her,"Buck said.

"And she still is,"said Douglas Buck, 56, Kathy Buck's husband and a long-time family member.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)