On Leap Day, 1952, 6 babies were born at Wesley. One woman is trying to reunite them 

When Theresa Ritchal was growing up, her family had a rule: you couldn’t celebrate your birthday if it wasn’t on the calendar.

“I got to celebrate one minute before midnight and one minute after midnight and then I’d have to go back to sleep,” said Ritchal, who goes by Terry Wilson now.

Ritchal’s childhood birthday celebrations were brief because she was born on Leap Day, Feb. 29, which appears on the calendar every four years.

“We have the rarest birthday,” said Becky Janzen, another Leap Day baby.

Ritchal and Janzen are two of 15 babies born at Wesley Hospital on Leap Day in Wichita in 1952. Six of them were photographed by the Wichita Beacon celebrating their first “leap” birthday four years later.

“Nobody was smiling in that picture,” said Betty Jo (McLinden) Wilson, who with Janzen were two of the six. “It was all very solemn.”

For the first time since that picture was taken, Janzen is trying to reconnect the Wesley Leap Day babies born in 1952.

“I’ve really had a good time with it,” said Janzen, who now lives in Lawrence and is the only one of the original group to still live in Kansas. “The fact that we’re all still alive is something.”

Ritchal lives in Kentucky, Kim McGinness Honeycutt in Ohio, Betty Jo (McLinden) Wilson in Georgia, Ray Gegen in North Carolina and Jack McCaslin in Virginia.

Janzen still has a copy of that photo – as well as the little blue dress she was wearing for it.

Those born on Leap Day have a special way of giving their age. The Wesley Six will turn 17@68 on the last Saturday of February. It’ll be their 17th Leap Day and their 68th year.

There are Facebook groups and Leap Day pillows and T-shirts and all sorts of memorabilia, but those born at Wesley in 1952 haven’t been swept up in all of that.

“A lot of (Leap Day) people have on their Facebook page a logo ‘Forever Young,’” Janzen said. “We always consider ourselves youngsters.”

Being a Leap Day baby requires patience and a sense of humor. Many said they’ve lost track of how many times someone has asked them, “How old are you – three or four?”

“I guess it gets a little bit old,” Janzen said. “Each person individually thinks they’re telling me that for the first time. I have a good sense of humor, so it doesn’t bother me.”

Ray Gegen still remembers the nun at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic School who put two candles on a birthday cake for him when he turned 8.

Being a Leap Day baby “was the source of a lot of teasing” in school, Gegen said.

Honeycutt remembers being teased a lot as a child for not having a birthday every year, too. She felt bad about being born on Feb. 29 until an Avon Lady came to visit one day.

“I was just in awe of her,” Honeycutt said. “She was real tall and had red hair and was the most gracious person. She happened to be a Feb. 29th birthday, too. She told me ‘Some day, you’ll like to count your real birthday.’ She was like 20 years old, which meant she was 80 years old at the time, but you’d never believe it.

“She told me, ‘Don’t ever let people tell you that you don’t have a birthday. You will celebrate it whatever day you choose to celebrate it.’ Ever since then, I’ve felt special…I like being a little different.”

“Leaplings” and “Leapers” are common nicknames for those born on Leap Day, and many throw “Sweet 16” birthdays when celebrating their 16th Leap Day.

For Terry Wilson’s twelfth Leap Day, her husband went to a bakery and ordered a birthday cake.

“When he went to pick it up, they looked at all the cakes and said ‘The only birthday cake we have says ‘Happy 12th birthday,’” Wilson said. “My husband goes, ‘That’s it!’ ‘What?’ The owner of the bakery almost climbed over the counter and beat him up for having a child bride. My husband said, ‘No, no. She’s a Leap Year baby!’”

While Wilson chuckles at that memory, other challenges that come with being a Leap Day baby are no laughing matter. Early computers often didn’t make allowances for Feb. 29, which meant routine matters such as getting a driver’s license or other legal documents could turn into a genuine headache.

When Terry Wilson turned 16 and got her first driver’s license, she had to send it back twice – first because it listed her birthday as Feb. 28 and then because it was changed to March 1.

“It always fascinates me that people still won’t believe me” when she writes or says she was born on Feb. 29, Terry Wilson said. “It’s funny how people will argue something like that.”

It’s not uncommon for the birth certificates of babies born on Leap Day to be altered, said Raenell Dawn, cofounder of the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies.

“This Leap Day, a little Leapling will have its birth certificate altered,” Dawn said in a social media response to questions. “Parents and/or hospital staff suggest it and it’s okayed by someone. Who? That’s what I want to know. That is so wrong and illegal.”

Computer glitches that don’t recognize Feb. 29 are still a regular occurrence, members of the leap day baby society say. The organization is mobilizing an effort to have Leap Day recognized as routinely on calendars as, say, Groundhog Day so it becomes more ingrained in the mind of the public.

A documentary about Leap Day children is being filmed aboard an exclusive cruise now under way for those born on Feb. 29.

Some restaurants are getting in on the Leap Day fun. According to the honor society’s Facebook page, Hard Rock Café and Houlihan’s are offering free entrees to Leap Day babies on February 29 and Pizza Hut is offering a free one-topping personal pan pizza. Great American Cookies is offering a free cookie cake to Leaplings.

While she barely got to celebrate her rare birthday as a child, Terry Wilson now celebrates her special day in non-Leap Years from noon on Feb. 28 to noon on March 1.

Gegen celebrates his birthday “for a whole week,” he said with a laugh.

Janzen, Honeycutt, McCaslin and Betty Wilson celebrate their birthdays in non-Leap Years on Feb. 28.

“I’m a strict Februarian,” Janzen said. “I tell people my birthday is always the last day of February no matter what day it is. To me, March is not February anymore.”

Betty Wilson considers herself a February birthday, too.

“That’s what my parents started, so I guess I always kept it up,” she said.

McCaslin opts for Feb. 28 to keep his birthday in February no matter what year it is. But he has another reason for it, he said in an email response to questions. His maternal grandfather was born on February 28.

“This made the choice special,” he said.

This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 5:01 AM.