Document text
All in the family Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Jon and Hannah Gettman, foreground, are standout basketball players at Cascade Christian High. The brother and sister duo receive a lot of support from their parents, Gail and Dennis, in background far left, and the rest of their family, some of whom aren't pictured. Holidays bring together nearly all 16 Gettman siblings By DON HUNT Mail Tribune A grin crosses the face of Hannah Gettman when she is asked what it's like to have all 15 of her brothers and sisters home at the same time. "It's a little hectic," says Gettman, a standout guard on the Cascade Christian High girls basketball team. "The older kids take over the bedrooms and the younger ones have to find an open corner." Dennis and Gail Gettman are down to 10 children in their Medford home these days - the six oldest have moved out. But the entire family was home for Thanksgiving - the head count was 29, counting spouses and grandkids - and all but the oldest son will gather in Charleston on the Oregon Coast for a holiday get-together that would make the Waltons envious. "We used to rent a condominium in Florence," Dennis Gettman says, "but once we got past 12 they wouldn't let us come back." Dennis and Gail Gettman didn't establish a set number of children they wanted to bring into the world when they married on May 6, 1972. At the time, they were newly converted Christians, and they would put the ultimate head count in the hands of their faith. "We thought we might have only one or two," Dennis says, "and we really thought we were finished at seven or eight." But along came eight more, forming one of the biggest families in the Rogue Valley and one of the biggest fan clubs at Cascade Christian High, where Hannah is a sophomore point guard on the girls basketball team and Jon a junior off-guard on the boys squad. Both play the game with reckless abandon, diving for loose balls, taking charges and all but climbing into opponents' jerseys when playing defense. "I'm afraid one of these days one of them is going to take out a section of bleachers," says Loren King, the Cascade Christian girls coach. "Jon is probably the more daring of the two, but neither has any fear on the court." Jon lived up to his reputation last weekend when he cut open his chin while getting knocked to the floor at a tournament in Salem. Such fearlessness may come from fighting for space at the dinner table or, more likely, from the spirited games that family members play in their backyard or at the beach. "My kids don't do anything halfway," says Dennis Gettman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "We've had some pretty wild football and basketball games." Dennis has been known to join in on the action himself, "and is very judicious when it comes to calling fouls," Gail Gettman says. The trips to the beach feature a cornucopia of events, including football, Frisbee, laser tag, four-wheeling, crabbing, shooting off miniature rockets and a scavenger hunt that finds Dennis and Gail hiding items all over Charleston. The only no-show among the children this year is Caleb, 26, who is in the Air Force near Ogden, Utah and can't make the trip. Nonetheless, the Gettman presence is strong. The roster consists of Josh, 27; Sarah, 25; Liz, 24; Jared, 22; Andrew, 21; Josiah, 20; Rebekah, 19; Jon, 17; Hanna, 16; Sam, 15; Deborah, 14; Phillip, 12; Lydia, 11; Jacob, 10; and Timothy, 8. Josh and Liz live in Portland while Sarah, Jared and Josiah reside in Klamath Falls, so gathering all but Caleb isn't especially difficult. "It's such a great experience," Dennis Gettman says of the trips to the coast, something the family started in the early 1980s. "It's a chance for the older kids to get to know the younger ones better, because they (the older ones) have been on their own for a while." The entire family gets along remarkably well, Dennis says. "I haven't detected any of those intense sibling rivalries you hear about," he says. "Every time we brought another child home from the hospital, the older ones wanted to hold them." Of course, there are always issues to resolve at the six-bedroom, three-bathroom, 3,300-square-foot home in Medford, where Dennis, Gail and 10 of the children still live. Who does the cooking? The laundry? The cleaning? Who decides what television program is played in the living room? Everyone has chores, it turns out, and Dennis can often be seen in the kitchen concocting a meal. As for TV, it's "first one to the remote, and then it's a matter of calling dibs for later programs," Hannah says. Not that everyone is home all that much. Andrew attends Southern Oregon University, Rebekah works at a local restaurant and Jon, Hannah, Deborah and Phillip are all involved in school sports. Despite sitting out her freshman year with a broken leg suffered while skim boarding at the coast, Hannah has blossomed into the top player on the Cascade Christian girls hoop team. She leads the Challengers in scoring,, assists and steals and, like Jon, is a tenacious defender. "She's one of those kids you'd like to have three or four more of," says King, whose team has posted an 8-1 record and is favored to win the Southern Cascade League. "She's very athletic and knows the game so well. "She's always asking why we do things this way or that way, not because she's being disrespectful but simply because she's curious. She's like having a coach on the floor." Hannah is the only Gettman who has had serious health problems. When she was 3 months old she nearly died of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare illness that produces muscular weakness in the extremities and can lead to paralysis. She spent 21 days in the hospital but recovered. Jon, meanwhile, is third in scoring and first in floor burns for the Cascade Christian boys squad. Such hustle might even earn him a bed during the holidays. Reach reporter Don Hunt at 776-4469, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.