Merry Birthday!

Maybe the biggest mystery around here is the family planning of Ralph Roy and Mildred Crittenden. Even their surviving children don’t know the answers or what to say.

Monday, as the rest of the world celebrates Christmas, their two daughters, Carolyn Skarda and Linda Moore, will celebrate their respective birthdays. The sisters are four years apart. Carolyn was born in 1937 and Linda in 1941. And if that is not unique enough, brother Merrill was born on Christmas Eve in 1935.

“And that was just a few minutes before midnight,” Linda said over the telephone from her winter home in Arizona. She also has a home in Norwalk. Skarda lives outside of Afton. Merrill passed in 2010 at his Osceola home.

The oldest child, Marilyn Adams, was born May 31, 1933. She passed in 2017 in Afton.

“Why would mom want three babies in December? It must have been a hell of a March,” Skarda laughed.

Moore said Dr. Herbert Stroy of Osceola delivered the children at the family farm near Hopeville south of Murray.

Neither Moore nor Skarda could ever remember being told of the timing of the births of the three even when they were old enough to comprehend. They have no evidence to know if it was intentional or not. Various agencies that track birth statistics note baby deliveries have been consistent leading up to Christmas, decrease on Christmas Day, but pick up the following days.

The two sisters were not alone in Hopeville. Tharon Marie German Flaherty was born on Christmas Day 1934. She passed earlier this month. Skarda said she knew Flaherty for many years.

The timing of the births of all the Crittenden children is a part of American history as it ranged from the Great Depression to America’s entrance into World War II. And with the Crittendens a farm family at that time, the challenges existed. But the sisters said their parents did not show any of the related stresses.

“We never felt deprived,” Carolyn said. “We lived on a farm and did not have a lot of money.”

Her parents acknowledged the birthdays and Christmas individually.

“We each had one birthday present and one Christmas present,” Carolyn said. “Mom always had a cake for us and it said Merry Christmas and happy birthday. We always had enough to eat. We had a good childhood.”

Skarda remembers the family being issued stamps for certain goods to buy at stores since items were rationed because of the war effort. To add to the family’s needs, the big garden provided, Skarda said.

Moore echoed the feeling.

“We had a good childhood. We never went without.”

Skarda attended country school at Pleasant #6 south of Thayer. During her childhood the rarity of her birthday, and sharing the day with her sister, and close enough with her brother, it wasn’t a big annual deal to the other kids in school.

“We didn’t know any different,” she said.

Moore doesn’t remember any specific Christmas Day memory more than another while growing up. She said there was a week of Christmas in the early 1960s when her parents used shovels to break up the big snow drifts on the road leading to the farm.

But during the adult years, other families made it a big deal in a surprise.

“After I married and had kids I thought I’d wonder what it would be like to have a birthday in the summer,” Skarda said.

One summer, the family went camping at Green Valley Lake over the Fourth of July holiday.

“We went camping with friends and we went to town to watch the Fourth of July parade in Creston. We went back to the camp and had a birthday party. That year was fun,” she said.

Skarda said the best part about that birthday was celebrating it and knowing she’s wasn’t a year older - until five months later.

Skarda worked part time at the post office for 32 years before retiring in 2000. She then picked up a few hours at Dairy Queen.

“I went from licking stamps to licking ice cream,” she laughed.

Moore lived in Texas and Ohio and eventually returne

d to Iowa.

Now, the two celebrate what is treated like a holiday in Iowa with the state fair held in August. The two went during their childhoods as tarps were attached to strategically parked cars to create a tent. Now they enjoy the fair with the comfort and convenience of campers.

Skarda said she turns to nature every Christmas. Early in the winter season, she hopes a hard freeze the night before gives the tree branches a frosty look to add to the ambience of the holiday. With a dry, warm fall so far, she isn’t so sure that will happen this year.

But at least there will always be frosting on her birthday cake. And her sister’s.