MADAWASKA, Maine — Siblings Paul Morneault, 47, Erick Morneault, 46, and Louise Morneault Martin, 43, have more than blood in common. They all were born Oct. 10.
Martin and Doris Morneault of St. David have made one birthday cake each year for their three children, part of a daylong celebration for which their father would take a day off from work and take them out of school. There would be activities celebrating the children’s birthdays throughout the day.
Martin Morneault recalls birthdays when restaurants would offer free meals on children’s birthdays and he would get some raised eyebrows bringing in three children for birthday meals.
He said people ask him how he and his wife managed the triple-birthday phenomenon. He jokes and says it was “planned parenthood,” but adds that it was due to Erick being born a month early — on his brother’s birthday, and Louise being born eight days late.
Paul now lives in North Carolina and is working in construction in Florida while saving up to open his own business. Erick lives in Eades, Tenn., where he works as a medical evacuation helicopter pilot after a 26-year career in the Army. Louise lives in Madawaska, where she home-schools her children, Melanie and Jonathan, and works as office manager for the Maine Acadian Heritage Council.
This year is a special one, the proud father said, because the children are sharing a birthday on Oct. 10, 2010, or 10-10-10.
As a Hartford Courant newspaper headline stated about the siblings in 1967, “How’s that for timing?”