Linked like sisters
Zana Sehlin and Gerry Sime
Zana Sehlin and Gerry Sime both graduated from high
school in 1948 and from the college in 1953. They both grew up in
Minneapolis, both married boys from Edina, and both have summer
homes in Minnesota and winter escapes in Florida. They look alike,
laugh similarly, finish each other’s sentences, and carry on like
sisters.
“I have an identical twin sister,” says Gerry (B.S.,
nursery school/kindergarten/primary school education), who met Zana
(B.S., physical education) in seventh grade. “When she and I are
together with Zana, people will ask if we’re triplets.”
And to make matters more interesting, Sehlin and
Sime married two weeks apart in 1952 to two men who met each other
in third grade and have remained lifelong friends as well.
“My husband Art and I met on a blind date in the
fall of 1947, our junior year in high school,” says Zana, who
attended Washburn High School in Minneapolis. “He knew Bill, I knew
Gerry, so we got them together early in ’48. We’ve all been together
ever since.”
Sometimes their togetherness was only in spirit.
Soon after college graduation, the Sehlins headed south to Florida
where Art, an engineer, helped to construct parts of the Sunshine
State Parkway (aka Florida’s Turnpike). Zana became the first
physical education teacher for girls in a rural town near
Jacksonville, Fla.
When the military called Art to France, Zana became
a substitute teacher overseas. When the Sehlins returned to the U.S.
in 1959, they moved in next door to Gerry and Bill Sime in
Minneapolis and Zana traded teaching for motherhood, raising two
children. The two “sisters” lived next to each other for 14 years.
Gerry also became a mother with three children but
continued teaching as a substitute in the Hopkins School District.
In 1989, “Bill decided he wanted to move to Florida,” remembers
Gerry. So while Zana and her family stayed in Minnesota, Gerry and
her family took their turn living in Florida. Gerry substitute
taught in Marco Island, Fla., from 1989 until 1996. She still
volunteers three days a week at the school. “I’m addicted to
education,” she says. “I just can’t give it up.”
Apparently neither could Zana. In 1972, when Title
IX created new funding opportunities for girls’ sports teams in
public schools, her junior-high daughters suggested she coach the
girls’ new downhill ski team.
Both families remain close. Winter brings Zana and
Art to Bonita Beach, Fla., 32 miles from Gerry’s and Bill’s Marco
Island home. They get together often for dinners, movies, boating,
and events for the Southwest Florida University of Minnesota Alumni
Association, for which Zana and Gerry both have been board members.
They will always consider themselves best of friends—“like sisters.”
—Scott Holter |
