These four sisters were born in Taylors Falls, Minnesota between 1896 and 1905. They were daughters of Swedish immigrants and although they are not strictly my great-aunties, that’s what I consider them. They were my great-grandmother’s double cousins, meaning that my great-grandmother’s mom and their mom were sisters, and my great-grandmother’s dad and their dad were brothers.

You can tell by the photo that they were tall! Their names are (L to R) Ida, Myrtle (Mert), Anna (Ann) and Gertrude (Gertie). They enjoyed a close sisterly bond and kept track of each other through thick and thin. Their father died at age 37 when they and their two brothers were very young. Their mother Jennie kept the family going by using her skill as a dressmaker. Eventually, Jennie owned a boarding house on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis where some professors lived. The University wound up buying the house and demolishing it to make room for the football stadium.

Ida, on the far left, was very tall and slender, with long strawberry blonde hair. She went on to be a fit model and traveled often from Minneapolis to Chicago clothing manufacturers for work. Ann, the third from the left, was a fashion buyer for Dayton’s who traveled the world on buying trips, and later went on to own an exclusive women’s boutique in Elm Grove, a suburb of Milwaukee.

I may not have inherited their height, but I did inherit their love of fashion!