Cottonwood Falls ? Germaine Anderson of Cottonwood Falls grew up knowing fame and became used to sharing her life and her family with photographers and reporters.

Anderson, whose family name is Beardsley, was the 14th oldest of 20 kids in her household. Her family’s life was portrayed in a 1968 movie, “Yours, Mine and Ours,” starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. The movie recently was remade and is in theaters now.

“Yours, Mine and Ours” was patterned after the book “Who Gets the Drumstick?” written by Anderson’s second mother, Helen Beardsley. Anderson commented on the title of the book.

“When everyone wants the drumstick, who gets it?” she said about having to share the drumstick with so many siblings.

The book offered a peek into the family of Frank Beardsley and Helen North Beardsley. They were married on Sept. 9, 1961, after they both were widowed.

Frank Beardsley had 10 children, including Anderson, and Helen North had eight children when they married. Later, they had two children together, making a grand total of 20 children, Anderson said. They lived in Carmel, Calif.

Anderson pointed out some similarities in her family. Both her mothers had the same china and both her mothers were nurses. In the book, Helen Beardsley also noted the similarities.

“It was strange to think there had been another woman who was so like me in appearance, taste, background and experience,” Beardsley wrote in her book. “… We both went to school and were married in Seattle, trained as nurses in the same hospital, married Navy men and had large families.”

Hollywood hoopla

Anderson, who was 4 when her parents married, said she was 11 when the original movie was made and they had the chance to meet Ball a time or two. Ball even paid for the family to spend a day at Disneyland.

“She was really nice,” Anderson said.

Anderson said she didn’t really think much of all the attention at the time.

“It always seemed normal to me,” she said. “Mom was on all the talk shows.”

After the movie’s premiere, tour buses would go by the family’s home and people would ask for autographs when they were out.

Frank Beardsley would encourage the kids to go on the porch and wave at people driving by, Anderson recalled. The family also was featured in Life magazine. Anderson recalled having pen pals she wrote to, and the family was in a Langendorf Bread Co. commercial, which was filmed in their home.

So what was life like with that many siblings? The family lived in an eight-bedroom, five-bathroom house, which had to be added onto after Helen North moved in with her eight children. Anderson said she shared her room with five sisters.

“It was a huge house,” Anderson said, noting that the house was large enough to find a quiet corner to retreat to.

Mealtime with a large family was an event, she said. The family sat down together for their meals. Food had to be delivered by the semi-truck load. Anderson recalled pouring 50-pound bags of sugar into a large drawer after receiving it.

Even though the family was large, they didn’t see each other as much as one might expect. Their parents owned three shops. The kids were put to work and they were all constantly going their own ways. Even when everybody was together, they got along, Anderson said.

“My dad was a Navy man so things were organized,” she said. “We didn’t really fight or anything.”

No link to movie

Today, Anderson has five children of her own. Her husband grew up with 11 kids in his family, adding to the long list of relatives. Helen North Beardsley died in 2000 in Healdsburg, Calif., and Frank Beardsley survives.

As for the new movie, “Yours, Mine and Ours,” starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo, the truth was discarded, Anderson said. The Beardsley family had no rights to this movie and no say in its content.

“They changed the whole story,” Anderson said. “They changed all the kids’ names. It’s a cute movie, but I don’t know why they called it “Yours, Mine and Ours” because it’s not our story.”

Despite the changes in the movie, Anderson said she was relieved when she saw it. “Our family is very private,” she said. “I was relieved when they changed the story.”