Twins still close, busy in their 80s

Martha, left, and Mary, right, marked their 80th birthday last summer with a special series of pictures with each other and their children and grandchildren. Their lives remain busy helping others.

After celebrating their 80th birthdays last year, neither Martha Smith of Carthage nor her twin sister, Mary Wilkens of Nauvoo, have intentions of slowing down in their work and activities.

Martha has been a legal secretary at the Hartzell, Glidden, Tucker and Hartzell law offices in Carthage three days a week since 1975.

Mary has been a regular volunteer at Sts. Peter and Paul School two days a week for the past 35 years.

“I am a teacher's aide with the fifth and sixth grade,” Mary said. “I may grade papers, help a student with math, or do anything that needs to be done.”

In addition to their work, both are involved with the American Legion and VFW auxiliaries. They are both in the Altar and Rose societies and are eucharist ministers at their churches, Mary at Sts. Peter and Paul in Nauvoo and Martha at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Carthage.

“We bowl. We started in Carthage when they built the bowling alley here in 1958. When it burned down, we went back to Keokuk,” Martha said.

“We bowl every Thursday night in Keokuk,” added Mary. “We bowled in Keokuk even before the alley was built in Carthage.”

They enjoy their active lives and appreciate their good health.

“We've been blessed with good health,” Martha said. While they have some health issues to deal with and both are cancer survivors (Martha some 40 years ago, and Mary about 5 years back), they do not dwell on that.

“I love working with kids,” Mary said. “I am now working with children of children I once had. Maybe some three generation families. They will see me after school and call, ‘Hi, Mary,' I never wanted to be called Mrs. Wilkens. That sounds old. They come up and throw their arms around me. I love that.”

“I love my work. I have always enjoyed being a legal secretary,” Martha adds. “It's good for a person to work, for health reasons, and it keeps your mind active.”

The twins are the daughters of Herman and Sadie Burling. They were born on the family farm just west of Ferris.

“Mom didn't know she was having twins,” Mary noted. They were about a month early and the doctor was out for a visit. “He was about ready to leave when I arrived,” Martha said. “Old doctor Pumphrey named us. He asked mom, ‘What are you going to name these girls?' Mom said she didn't know. She wasn't expecting to have twins. He suggested Mary and Martha, and that was it.”

They went to Pioneer country school, and attended Carthage High School for two years.

“We boarded with the Metternichs in Carthage during the week. There were no buses. For our last two years we went to St. Mary's Academy in Nauvoo,” Martha said. “When you got out of St. Mary's you had all the commercial skills you needed. You had to type 80 words a minute, and we had short hand and bookkeeping.”

Martha started in the law office of William S. Angell in Carthage in 1943, right out of high school. She moved to the offices of Homer Williams and Franklin Hartzell in 1955.

“I stopped working in 1958, when Theresa was born,” Martha said. “When my husband Bernard died in 1975, I sold his trucking company, and they called to see if I'd come back to work at Hartzell's office.”

She learned to use a computer instead of a typewriter in the 1980s.

“I'm not nearly as adept at computers as the other girls, but they keep me going.”

Mary started working with Homer Williams right after high school in 1943. In 1946 she became a deputy circuit clerk for Circuit Clerk Edwin Piggott.

“I worked there until 1957, after I was married to Ambrose Wilkens,” Mary said. “I quit when we moved to the farm. That's still where I live near Nauvoo.” Ambrose farmed a small acreage and was a mail carrier.

“I play cards twice a month, I'm a Gray Lady at the hospital, and do a lot of visiting with sick or elderly people.” Mary regularly visits her 98-year-old neighbor, Hilda Ort.

“Being twins has been fun. We've been close, and our husbands were good friends,” Martha said. “Our children are closer than cousins. They almost grew up like brother and sister.” They each have one child. Martha's daughter, Theresa Schaer lives with her husband and three children in Macomb. Mary's son, Dan, and his wife have two children and live near Chicago at Winfield.

“We've always been family oriented,” Martha said. They have one living brother, Ron Burling of Carthage. Two sisters, Margaret and Catherine, and a brother, Jim, are deceased.

“We did all the typical things on the farm, played in the barns and in the orchard. We rode ponies,” Mary recalled. “Life was a lot different.”

Their closeness continues.

“We talk on the phone every day,” Mary said.

“We see each other several times a week,” Martha added.