‘Exact Opposites’ Mark 100th Year of Their Sameness
Twins Rhea Spohner and Ruth Emblow celebrated their 100th birthday Friday, a feat experts say happens in just one set of twins out of 100,000.
The sisters live separately in apartments in the same senior citizens’ complex in suburban Rochester, while their younger sister, who is 94, lives nearby, they said.
“We couldn’t live together,” Emblow said. “We’re exact opposites in everything.”
But they share a fondness for chocolate and enjoy watching figure skating on television, they said. They still cook for themselves, with a little help from friends.
Statistically, only one pair of twins out of 100,000 survives so long, James Vaupel, a demographer at Duke University said.
Longevity runs in the family. The twins’ mother died at 101 and their father lived to be 87. All six of their father’s sisters lived to be older than 90, the twins said.
The fraternal twins have lived their whole lives in Rochester in upstate New York.
Spohner was married in 1947 and widowed in 1976 and has no children. Her twin sister never married.
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