ERMA – As children, Marian Doyle, Rita Gardiner, and Annette Nolan were like three peas in a pod: Identical triplets who often won first place in local baby parades, dressed alike until they were 14 years old, and were so in tune with each other, they could finish each other’s sentences and seemed to know what the others were thinking.
Now, at 74, the women still love being together, traveling all over, living around the corner from each other, and enjoying a “good” life.
“We have had a good life,” reflected Doyle, as she was getting ready to pack up her home in Erma and move to Florida full time.
“We love being together,” added Gardiner.
The women were born prematurely, at about 30 weeks, in Somers Point, a phenomenon that made the local newspaper because they were the first triplets born in the area.
“Our mother conceived us without any fertility drugs,” Doyle explained, “and actually became pregnant with four babies. She miscarried one in the first three months, otherwise, our mother would not have been able to carry all four of us.”
“Annette was born first and then me, and we each weighed 3 pounds,” she added, noting they were born Oct. 4, 1948. “Rita was born last and weighed almost 2 pounds.”
“We were in incubators until we came home on Christmas Eve,” Gardiner said, “but we had so many visitors coming to the house to see us, we ended up with pneumonia and back in the hospital shortly after.”
Their mother, Rita, was the owner of Kane’s Luncheonette, in Wildwood, where she worked for a few years before stopping. She also had a daughter who was 18 months older than the triplets and eventually had another four years after.
“Our dad was a commercial lineman, and really good from what we remember, but our parents separated when we were 8 years old and we lost contact with him,” Doyle said. “I remember my mom and four of us girls living in a small, one-bedroom bungalow for a few years before we moved to a bigger house. Mom never remarried and we eventually moved closer to Philadelphia where she worked two jobs to provide for us.”
Living in Wildwood, their grandmother would make their costumes for the baby parades.
“One year, we dressed up as pennies and we were three coins in a fountain,” Gardiner said. “I remember when three-dimensional pictures came out and that year, we dressed up and called ourselves ‘The 3-Ds.’ We had picture frames around us. Another year, we dressed as three peas in a pod. We loved living in Wildwood.”
Because the girls are identical and dressed alike when they were young, people were unable to tell them apart.
“We always got attention wherever we were,” Doyle said, “and it was actually very depressing. We didn’t want the attention, we just wanted to be ourselves. We were fighting for our own identities.”
“Around town, people would say, ‘Hi, one-third,’ or ‘Hi trip,” Doyle said. “I remember parting my hair on the other side thinking people would know it was me, but no one even noticed. At school, we had to sit in the same spots, so they knew who was who. Even now, when I am with my sister, people will ask if we are twins, for instance, and I will say, ‘No, I’m a triplet.’ We never sought the attention.”
As teens on the dating scene, they all might like the same guy, but “once the guy picked which of us he was interested in, that was it,” Doyle said. “We never played second to our sisters.”
Doyle remembered one date when she was 25 years old that she didn’t want to go on, so she talked Gardiner into going in her place.
“I ended up telling him because I felt so bad about it,” Gardiner said, “and he thought it was a horrible trick. We never heard from him again.”
Upon the advice of a friend, when the girls were 14, they decided to stop dressing alike, so they could each develop their own personalities. Doyle described herself as the “leader of three,” saying she was the one who “always stood out and would protect the other two.”
Her sister agreed. Gardiner, as the youngest, has a personality like Doyle’s. Nolan, as the oldest, is the “quiet one, shyer.” She was born with a hearing problem, the sisters said, which contributed to her shyness.
The women all married. Noland is still married and has three children and four grandchildren. She became a registered psychiatric nurse.
Gardiner is a widow with one daughter and a grandchild and had a 30-year career with the postal service.
Doyle, who is divorced with no children, also had a 30-year career in the government, including as a local postmaster. After retiring, she moved to Cape May County.
“For nine years, we’ve been going back and forth from Cape May to Florida,” Doyle said, “and now, it’s time to leave. Keeping up two places is a lot. We’ve been coming to the shore for most of our lives, but it’s time to leave. We’ve had a good life, but it’s time for something new.”
Contact the author, Karen Knight, at kknight@cmcherald.com.
