Estella & Luvella Nielsen, Spring Valley Lutheran Church, Turner County, South Dakota, 1914


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Estella & Luvella Nielsen, Spring Valley Lutheran Church, Turner County, South Dakota, 1914.


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Confirmation: Coming of Age in Denmark and the US

Identical twins Estella & Luvella Nielsen were the youngest of 14 children of Niels and Caroline (Dobler) Nielsen. In addition to being confirmed together, the girls were married in a double ceremony in 1923 to men who were 100% Danish. They both gave birth to four sons, lived on adjacent 40-acre farms before moving with their families to Rapid City, South Dakota. After their husbands died they each married a man 11 years younger than themselves. Estella & Luvella each outlived these husbands and ended up as roommates in a nursing home in Hastings, Minnesota, where they both died at the age of 102.