Screen grab from WNYT Channel 13 interview of Marguerite Kirchner Miller, Frances Kirchner Hornberger and Catherine Kirchner Roth
Some things you can't plan for; some things just happen in their own good time. Sunday August 23, 2015, the Kirchner triplets turned 95. That's a combined total of 285 years of life experience, dating from August 23, 1920. The family believes they are the oldest living triplets in America, and possibly the world. (WNYT interview
here.)
More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
They were born in a third floor apartment in the Bronx, and grew up in Floral Park, Long Island. They were in the same classes in school growing up - and as identical triplets, they caused a certain amount of confusion along the way. From Sewanhaka High School they all went on to William Smith College in Geneva NY - Class of '42. (They got a special deal on tuition - 3 for the price of 2!). From there they all went their separate ways, marrying, raising families, and here they are now.
It's been quite a ride. The U.S. had just instituted prohibition the year they were born. (An experiment in legislating morality, the original war on drugs. It went about as well as you would expect.) They remember hearing about Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic - and lived through the Great Depression. They all worked behind the counter at the dairy bar of the Borden Milk exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair.
It made the news then - if you look at this archived front page of the Nassau Daily Review-Star, in the lower right there's the story "Triplets Get Triple World's Fair Jobs". They also found time to show that all fingerprints are different - a small story buried on page 11 of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (July 22, 1939) shows they found time at the fair to be fingerprinted at the Police Exhibit of New York City - as were ten sets of twins.
One of the things they did not know when they arrived at William Smith College was that the campus was right next to that of Hobart College. They hadn't seen the college before being accepted, but by all accounts they managed to adapt. All three of them eventually ended up marrying men from Hobart College.
One of the significant events of their college years was December 8, 1941. The day after Pearl Harbor, the men's side of the colleges was emptied out as they were either called up or went off to enlist. William Smith College is in Geneva, NY on Lake Seneca in the Finger Lakes region. The Navy had some major training facilities built there, and the Seneca Army Depot was still a presence in the area up until closing in 2000.
On graduation, all three of them went into teaching - and the sister act broke up as they went their separate ways for the first time in their lives. Catherine ended up in western New York, in Batavia; Marguerite in Pittsburgh, PA (now in Allentown); Frances returned to Floral Park. The next decades were involved with raising families, careers, establishing homes and community connections. They would see their share of triumphs and tragedies, too much to go into here. They have seen quite a bit of history - here's a few words and phrases in no particular order to suggest some of it.
The Atomic Bomb. The GI Bill. Antibiotics. DNA. Polio vaccines. McCarthy. The Cold War. The Berlin Wall. Korea. The Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK, RFK, MLK. Elvis. The Beatles. The Pill. Sputnik. Checkers. The Military Industrial complex. The Moon Race. The Great Society. The Vietnam War. The Civil Rights Act. "I am not a crook". Apollo 11. Apollo 13. The Mayaguez. Burton and Taylor. Sesame Street. Multiple Mid-East wars. The Iran Hostage Crisis. Grenada. Panama. Iran-Contra. The Dot-Com boom. Challenger. Columbia. The I.S.S. The HST. Genomics. Multiple Clinton-gates. Gulf Wars 1 & 2. Iraq, Afghanistan, GWOT. Reagan Voodoo Economics. The Great Recession. Obama. Obamacare. Caitlyn Jenner, Trump....
When the triplets hit 90, they gathered on Long Island for a celebration. It made the cover of Long Island Newsday, and got them a minor guest appearance on Rachel Ray a few months later. Gathering in the smaller media market of Albany, NY for their 95th didn't make as big a splash - lots of shootings, stabbings and drownings in the news that weekend - but they all got letters of congratulation from Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania. WTEN had a short news story on them, and WNYT did an interview which is up at their website and getting quite a few Facebook recommends. Asa Stackel did a great job interviewing them. (The picture at the top of this diary is a screen grab from that interview.)
At 95, they're fifteen years older than Social Security - and considering how many stock market booms and busts they've seen, it's a good thing Social Security is still around. They've all returned to their respective homes. There's no telling when or even if they will all be together again - but we are all fortunate to have had them for as long as we have.
Happy Birthday!
4:48 PM PT: UPDATE: CBS This Morning may run a short feature on the triplets Tuesday morning 8-25-15 between 8 and 9 am.