Mosgiel identical twins clock up 100
Cora Wright has spent all but 30 minutes of her 100 years with identical twin sister Elsie.
On July 24, 1917, as the Great War was raging in Europe, twin sisters Cora Wright and Elsie Fagg (nee Wells) were born in the South Otago town of Milton.
On the eve of their 100th birthday, and the card from Queen Elizabeth II to prove it, the close pair were the guests of honour in front of dozens of family and friends.
The pair had lived through another war, and witnessed new technologies such as cars, planes, television, computers and mobile phones changing how we live and interact.
Yesterday, surrounded by family members they celebrated their 100th birthday at Mosgiel’s Mossbrae Healthcare, where the pair have lived together since 2013.
Wright’s son, Alan, said he always had difficulty telling the pair apart.
‘‘That only changed recently. Before that, when I saw them standing together I couldn’t tell,’’ he said.
That is unless the ‘‘mirror twins’’ are writing, as Wright is right-handed and Fagg left-handed.
Wright is the oldest by just half an hour.
One of their earliest memories was catching crayfish at their family crib at Bull Creek, South Otago.
They later had their own families: two boys and two girls. Both worked at the Bruce Woollen Mill in Milton and later at the Mosgiel Woollen Mill.
Neither of the women had smoked or drank, and had longevity in their family. Their grandmother lived to 103 and their aunt to 101.
And the wider family now count five sets of twins among the many members.
In 2009, Stuff reported that identical twins Beryl Baguley and Matilda (Tilley) Hanlon turned 100, with the mathematical chance of identical twins reaching the age of 100 being one in 700 million.