©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Connection to Chestnut Hill history
90-year-old twins still as youthful as ever
by AUDREY LEVINE

Twin sisters June Spielman and Christine Morris celebrated their 90th birthdays last month at the Chestnut Hill home of Marianne Mannino, who is dating June’s oldest son, Dr. Charles Spielman. (Photo by Kristin Pazulski)

They enjoy painting, taking walks and spending time with their families. They love traveling and played varsity basketball and hockey during college.

And they just turned 90 years old.

June Spielman and Christine Morris, twin sisters originally from Prospect Park, Delaware County (but with a significant Chestnut Hill connection which you’ll soon learn) celebrated their 90th birthdays on June 14. Although they now live in two different states, they still remain close friends.

“We’ve always been close even though we don’t live close,” Morris said. “We visit, write letters. We used to do everything together.”

Their 90th birthday party was held at the Chestnut Hill home of Marianne Mannino, who is dating June’s oldest son, Dr. Charles Spielman. “June is truly amazing,” said Marianne. “Four of us play Scrabble all the time, and June usually beats me. She knows so many words nobody else ever heard of.”

(Marianne wrote a column on the environment for the Local in the 1970s, and she ran the Hill’s glass recycling program. Her goal at one time was “to grow up to be the editor of the Local, like Ellen Wells.”)

The sisters’ father, Benjamin Fletcher Moore, for 50 years (1900 to 1950) was the private secretary of Samuel F. Houston, who lived at Drum Moir and was the son of Henry Houston, who along with George Woodward had many of the spectacular homes in Chestnut Hill and West Mt. Airy built from Wissahickon schist, stone that was quarried in the Wissahickon Valley.

“Our father graduated from a business school,” said June, “and he took dictation, wrote letters and took care of other business obligations for Mr. Houston. He worked in the Realty Trust Building at Broad and Chestnut, but he would often take the train to Drum Moir to bring money to Mr. Houston so he could pay his employees.”

The Moore family donated a tract of farmers’ land to a township government in Delaware County for the construction of a train station on the condition that it be named the Moore Train Station (which it was).

Despite their ages, the sisters remain as active as possible, taking art classes, going for walks and participating in their respective churches as often as possible. Spielman, who has lived in Avalon, NJ for the past 25 years, enjoys painting and going to her exercise class. She also volunteers at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor and enjoys crossword puzzles. “I like doing them because they keep my brain going,” she said.

Morris walks everyday in the retirement community where she lives, in Warminster, Bucks County. “I’m still pretty active,” she said. “I don’t just sit in a chair.”

Morris and Spielman have always been extremely active, especially during their time at Drexel University in the late 1930s, when they were both on the varsity basketball and hockey teams. According to Morris, she enjoyed traveling to different colleges to play the sports. “I liked to be active,” Spielman said. “It makes you feel young, and later on it is good for your health.”

Morris and her sister did not learn of their acceptance to Drexel through the normal letter sent home, but rather through a photographer trying to get their picture for the newspaper. “A reporter from a Philadelphia newspaper wanted to take our picture because we won a scholarship,” she said. “That’s how we found out we got accepted.”

The sisters both studied home economics in college, which they later taught to high school and middle school students for about three years, Spielman in Pennsylvania and Morris in Delaware. “I enjoyed being with the other teachers,” Morris said. “I would also visit students at their homes. It was good to get to know them and their families.”

Despite spending a few years teaching and more years later on working at Strawbridge’s, Spielman and Morris spent most of their lives caring for their children after they were both married in 1941.

Perhaps one of the greatest passions the sisters share is their love of traveling, from camping in Europe to visiting Australia and China. “It is always good to see how other people live,” said Morris. The first time she went to Europe was with her sister “before there were jet planes.” They were on an old plane with a propeller and had to stop to refuel at one point, making the trip 14 hours instead of the five or six it would take now. Morris and her sister also took a cross-country trip when they were young, traveling by train through New Orleans, Texas, California, Chicago and even through Canada. Morris has since traveled to Asia, New Zealand, the Caribbean Islands and many locations in the U,S.

Spielman used to take her kids camping and to the national parks out west, as well as to Korea and Hong Kong. In addition to a love of traveling, both women love the ocean and spending time at the beach. Despite their recent birthday celebration and a family gathering several days afterwards, Spielman still feels youthful. “I can’t believe I’m 90,” she said. “It feels the same as in the past. I still drive my car, I still live alone in my own home.”

Although Morris does not drive her car anymore, she agreed that, despite her age, she feels no different than she did years ago. Overall, the sisters are happy with the lives they’ve led, including the fact that they have remained close throughout the years, and have no regrets about wnything they’ve done or didn’t do.

“I’ve always felt different and special,” Morris said, “because I have a twin sister.”