What began as a way to explain to their daughter of the family connections of those attending a funeral wake several years ago became an ongoing quest for Paul and Juanita Gulotta to draw out a living family tree.

The two retirees of New Iberia eventually discovered they were about to welcome their 50th great-grandchild to the family, a number that made the New Iberia couple realize how important faith was to the strength of their family.

“It’s all because of God and the faith we have in our life,” Paul Gulotta, 84, said. “More and more I realize how important family is.”

Gulotta was inspired to begin the family tree, which he started with his and his wife’s grandparents after daughter Joan told him she recognized some people at the wake but didn’t know how they were connected to the family.

“So I said, well, Joan, give me a pencil and paper and in about five minutes I’ll have it done,” he said.

“He’s still working on it,” Juanita, 83, said with a laugh.

“I’m still working on a family tree — I call it a living family tree, because I’ve tried to get the present family that we have and list them, and I’ve started adding pictures,” Paul said. “It’s grown into a monster. It just keeps going. I use a spreadsheet.”

His mother was a Guidry, so he has a Gulotta-Guidry branch to the family tree. Juanita was an Hebert and her mother was a Broussard, so there’s an Hebert-Broussard branch.

“That’s how this thing got started,” he said. “That’s how the numbers got started and where we got there. But I want to stress the importance of faith in our family. None of this would happen like it did if we didn’t have strong Catholic faith, and (realize) how important family is.”

The couple has five sons and a daughter — Dr. Paul Jr., Mark, Eric, Joan and David, in order of birth — 26 grandchildren and 49 great-grandchildren, with one expected.

It was when the grandkids asked Juanita what number her great-grandchild would be — she was one of four in the family who was pregnant at the time — that they began counting. Step-grandchildren and great-grandchildren are included in the number.

That led to the discovery that they were approaching 50 great-grandchildren.

Having such a large family can be challenging for holiday get-togethers, they realized, because of obligations to spend time with spouses’ families as well. The family decided to try to make Thanksgiving a time when the whole family could get together.

“Our daughter Joan has been hosting Thanksgiving for the past six or seven years,” Paul Gulotta said. “Well, at Joan’s home last year, we had 94 people.”

This year, because of the large number of people involved and the stress that puts on one family to host, and obligations to spend time with in-laws, the Gulottas decided to rent the Camp Knighton Building, an Iberia Parish Recreation Department facility for a Gulotta Family Picnic in June.

“The invitation list for the picnic was 132,” he said, including Juanita’s brother and his two daughters.

Paul Sr. ran Gulotta’s, a western wear and work wear store, for years after taking over for his father and grandfather, who had started the business as a shoe repair store.

Paul began working fixing shoes. At one point, the shop was in the building adjacent to Bouligny Plaza where Bojangles Sushi and Oyster Bar is currently located. The building was divided in two at the time, so the shoe shop was 12-feet wide and 25-feet deep. During World War II, Paul Gulotta recalls, his dad was kept busy repairing shoes because many people couldn’t buy new shoes because of wartime rationing.

In the 1960s the business moved to the corner of Bridge and Burke streets, then moved to Lewis Street in the 1970s.

“We started as a shoe shop, got into western boots because for some reason a western boot salesman came around and wanted to sell boots,” he said. “We started out with 12 pairs of western boots.”

“And his daddy told him, he said, if you want to sell western boots, you have to put that out of your pocket,” Juanita said. “And he did. I was really skeptical — where are we going to get the money to buy these things? And sold them with no problem.”

“It grew, thank God,” Paul said. “God’s been so good to us.”

All of their kids worked at the shop, both to teach them responsibility and work ethic, and to help pay for college.

When the two retired they sold the shop to sons Mark and David, with a couple of their children working at the shop as well, managing the retail front of the shop, working in bookkeeping and filling Amazon orders.

“Now we’re in the fifth generation there,” Paul said. “All of them (their children’s children) worked there at one time or another because they did the same thing we did. If you want to go to school, you have to earn money.”

The two are thankful for the large family they’ve been able to be a part of.

“We’ve been so blessed,” he said. “We’re so fortunate that we have such a good, wonderful family. God’s been good to us.”