In the early morning hours of December 19, 1945, at Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, two baby girls were born: Denice Mary Mayer at 2:17 a.m. and Linda Jean Nielsen, 31 minutes later.
Recent DNA tests confirm Denice Juneski and Linda Jourdeans were then switched at birth. How exactly they were switched, is probably lost to the ages.
Family photos offer anecdotal support for the DNA’s scientific conclusion. Linda, the redhead, is pictured growing up in a family of blondes – while Denice, the blonde, is surrounded by brunettes and redheads in pictures with her siblings and cousins.
You can read the full story by Boyd Huppert in the WTSP web site at https://on.wtsp.com/2LMEJ9x.
Also make sure you check out the photos at the end of the article. As they say on Sesame Street, “One of these things is not like the others.”
8 Comments
Another amazing switched at birth story–wow. Thanks for sharing. But those two as children did not look so unlike their accidental families that anyone might have noticed. The story you shared several years ago about the two men in the Bronx, born 1917 in the same hospital, has kept me wondering how their accidental families never noticed the extreme difference between the boys/men and the rest of the family. It was extraordinary.
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I don’t know that I’d really want to know if that had happened to me – maybe some years earlier but after 80 – no way I’d be able to keep track of two families!
Best of luck to them all, I hope they will all enjoy the huge new families they have.
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WTSP link denies access
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I just clicked on the link in the article and it worked perfectly. WTSP displayed the article. All I can suggest is to try again.
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Ditto – full message:
“Access Denied
You don’t have permission to access “http://www.wtsp.com/article/news/at-72-two-women-learn-they-were-switched-at-birth/89-563076528” on this server.
Reference #18.bed3dead.1528933318.61f9ef5”
I’m in the UK – don’t know whether that’s relevant…
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Update: this link allows access: https://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/two-minnesota-women-their-70s-learn-they-were-switched-birth/payH9YVpt6bax77T2AxOcP/
but various other radio/TV station ones are all access denied to me.
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I wonder how common this is. I had a baby boy in a small hospital in Maine after a long holiday weekend. I was handed a baby girl in a pink blanket later. Luckily out of a nursery of 21 babies mine was the only boy. Ten years later it almost happened again. The nurse approached to hand me a baby and realized it was the wrong race. I was lucky.
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Here is the original link for Boyd Hupperts story:
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/at-72-two-women-learn-they-were-switched-at-birth/89-563076528
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