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He may have been the first but countless followed, all the doom has been wrong so far... Not saying there aren't huge concerns (peak oil) but statements like "there are too many people" are unfounded.
Some places are unsustainably overpopulated, others are not. Some populations are growing exponentially, others are not.

He has been wrong so far? One billion malnourished people is doom, isn't it?
The places where population growth is - by your definition - sustainable, are the very places where each individual uses more resources than ten people in the places where population growth is unsustainable. Those not burdening the planet with more people are doing so with more stuff, waste, and pollution.
Until science gets ahead of the curve, the solution is fewer people.

The article doesn't say, but I'd wager those billion are in countries with greatly increasing populations... It's hard to group all the complex regions and populations of the earth into one and make statements like "too many" or "can't handle."
I agree with you on energy and consumption, but that's a separate issue. High consumption is not prerequisite to living in a developed country. Many people here are testament that you can have a high standard of living without consuming a lot of resources.
If everyone lived like Jacob, population could probably top 50 billion easy.

The example of a UK farmer in 1910 has nothing to do with this woman, who was born into a modern, non-agrarian, upper middle class family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXEddCLW3SM

What is the point of this article? I really don't get it. So a woman didn't have a lot of money and grew old and sold her big house when she no longer needed it, and worked until she was 83. So what? (Where is the extraordinary courage the article headline mentions?) Is it just an add for a financial adviser?
I was about to challenge you guys on claiming that you could know that her having 9 children is irresponsible**, and on claiming that you could know whether there really are too many people on the earth (might be more of a question of what the people are doing than whether there are too many. But then I calculated how many people there are per square mile of land mass on the earth. There are 100. If you take out some area that is the north pole, Antarctica, and some deserts, that number would be significantly higher. 100 people per square mile is about 250,000 square feet per person, or about 500x500, but again when you take out the land that is pretty much uninhabitable, maybe it's more like 350x350. I still don't know whether that's too much. You can certainly support more than one person (living simply) with that much land. It's more dense than I expected though!
I do still think it's smug and un-empathetic to claim that one person was personally irresponsible just for having children (even if you're right that it's not good for the earth). All we know about her is a very short summary of her life, written by by Karin Stifler, CFP, AIF, 50-60 years after she had the children,

Hmm -- I mentioned the nine kids only in passing. I don't think its necessarily irresponsible to have that many if you can take care of them. (And who is going to pay my SS if my neighbor doesn't crank out enough future workers?) Of course I have about 80 cousins -- on my mother's side -- so I may be biased. But all of my aunts and uncles have been well cared for in their old age by their children. Not necessarily financially, but in other ways.
What I found more disturbing about the article in the first place was the fatalistic yet unstated assumptions underlying it. The article paints the woman in heroic terms for surviving all of these financial and other set-backs. In doing so, it tacitly assumes that she never had control over any aspect of her life. In fact, there is no attempt to separate controllable aspects from non-controllables. And since it says that this is "an ordinary life", it implies that ordinary people are destined to live such lives and that the best they can do is stay cheery and/or keep a stiff upper lip. They don't ever get to be FI. That's what really depressing.
For an excellent film about some of these very issues (what to do with old people who have failed financially), watch the movie "Make Way for Tomorrow" from 1937. BTW, you Fourth Turning bugs out there will recognize that the woman described in the article is similar in some ways to those depicted in the film. Here's a synopsis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Way_for_Tomorrow

"A modest IRA and pension, plus Social Security paid the bills, but wasn't enough to cover big expenses like new tires for the car."
What's a pension?
She also worked a job until just recently. I think for many people here, the combination of 3 income streams plus years of extra job income plus medicare plus capital from the sale of 2 homes would be FI.
There is also no mention of her own parents or inlaws or any siblings. What became of them?
PS--Thanks for the movie recommendation, from the synopsis it looks good!

Good catch Dragline. When experts tell us that failure is "normal" or "ordinary" they're implying that those who don't fail are abnormal. Who wants to be considered abnormal?
The fact that they profit off of our new looser definition of normal goes without saying.

Overpopulation is about more than number of people per square mile. Food has to be grown, which requires land, water and often fertilizer. These people want to live somewhere, which means raw materials are needed. Even people who live modestly need energy to cook food and heat their home, refrigerate perishables, and require various items that need to be produced. Even with a frugal lifestyle like Jacob's and even with freecycling, stuff still has to be made somewhere, packaged and transported. Sustaining a human life simply takes a minimum of energy, water and materials. Then also consider the resources needed to provide medical care and the care for the elderly. All of this produces pollution and waste. There is just no way around it. Frugal living is about the nature and amount of resources needed to live, but everyone still needs resources to live. On top of that, global warming and the rising sea levels may further reduce the land area suitable for permanent human settlement. The changing climate may result in a reduced yield of crops.
Except for religious reasons, people have generally procreated out of self interest ever since birth control was possible. There was a time that children were needed to work on the farm. They produced an income for the family from a very early age. This is not so much the case in the industrialized world in the 21st century. I don't know where the cutoff should be, but my guess is lower than 9. The 2.1 average for the industrial world seems more realistic. Maybe a little lower wouldn't hurt. Do we really need to consistently replace the existing population?

@RealPerson, "Except for religious reasons, people have generally procreated out of self interest ever since birth control was possible."
Actually that's not true. A 2011 study found that half of all pregnancies in the U.S. were unintended. While unintended does not mean the kids are now unwanted, it does mean they were not desired. That's not ideal. Other than the immediate pleasure there is no self-interest involved in the conception.
We have so many ways to prevent pregnancy and other ways to deal with an unwanted pregnancy after the fact, yet half the people who reproduced did so unintentionally? That's nuts.

@Ego - That is a good point. That is even more sad.