A mother, son and daughter will share milestone birthdays on Nov. 6. Twins Carol and Darryl Aulenbach will turn 50, and their mom, M. Jeanette (Nettie) Aulenbach, will be 75.
Born in 1963 in the Reading Hospital, Carol and Darryl weighed a combined 12 lbs. and were about five days overdue. The twins came as a surprise despite the mother-to-be’s oversize belly. A nurse at the hospital heard two heartbeats a few days before delivery. After delivering the babies, Mom recalls a delivery room nurse exclaim, ‘You have two beautiful babies! If you don’t want them, I’ll take them.’
Mom earned her 15 minutes of fame when a local AM radio station selected her ‘Mother of the Day.’ The Baby Bank program included a recorded interview that aired Nov. 7, 1963. The hospital discharged Mom and the kids on Nov. 16, the birthday of the twins’ father, the late Louis R. Aulenbach.
Dad Louie occasionally bragged that he never forgot a birthday. In fact, one of Louie’s two brothers, the late Franklin Aulenbach, also shared a Nov. 6 birthday. Imagine if Louie’s and Franklin’s birthdays had been reversed!
All four members of the Aulenbach family graduated from Fleetwood Area High School between 1953 and 1981. Nettie lives in Fleetwood close to the home where she was born and is a retired Fleetwood Borough secretary. Darryl lives in Ruscombmanor Township and is a supervisor at East Penn Manufacturing. Carol resides in Spring Township and is a senior marketing communications specialist at Carpenter Technology.