Original Blog Entry: Grandmother Marks 99 Birthdays On Wrong Day

truesee — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:19:38 GMT

Grandmother Marks 99 Birthdays On Wrong Day

11:52pm UK, Thursday May 07, 2009

A great-great-grandmother celebrating her 100th birthday has discovered she has been marking the occasion on the wrong day her entire life.

Emily Donoghue discovered her birthday was two days later than she thought

Emily Donoghue from South Wales believed she was born on May 3, 1909, until this week when her son found out that she was actually born two days later.

The family uncovered the mistake after they were made to provide a copy of Mrs Donoghue's birth certificate to ensure she received a congratulatory telegram from the Queen.

John Donoghue, 78, said: We couldn't make it out because she'd insisted it was the third and we took her word for it.

Nobody bothered to look for the birth certificate until we had to send it off.

I think she must have been celebrating on the third all her life. We don't know why, maybe because they didn't make much of birthdays when she was young.

John Donoghue, Son

We told her 'You've had your way all these years, you've got to start listening to us now'. We said 'You will have to celebrate your 100th on the fifth'.

So what we did was take her for tea on the third, and on the fifth they had a party at the nursing home with a cake saying 'Congratulations Emily 100 today'.

She had a lovely day, all the family went.

Mr Donoghue said his mother was the youngest of nine children and was the only one still living.

She was born in Newport but followed her childhood sweetheart Jack Donoghue to London when she was 16 years old.

They married and returned to South Wales a few years later.

The couple have three sons and a daughter, followed by nine grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and two great-great-children

Link to picture Emily Donoghue

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Great-Grandmother-Celebrates-100th-Birthday-On-The-Wrong-Day/Article/200905115277381?f=rss

... [ More ]