For the first 25 years of their lives, Nene Lott and her sister Nan were practically inseparable. They were born mere moments apart and from that point on, they were at each other’s side, a mutual complement in all they did. They grew up playing baseball together in rural Norwich south of Woodstock, Ontario, for example, and Nan was the catcher while Nene was her trusty pitcher.
As in so many other things in life, they were in-tune while on the field.
When they were younger, they gravitated to the game, and though their parents were never much into sports, baseball was something they began to share as a family and they have wonderful memories of their three sisters and their parents cheering them on. As Nene and Nan grew into their late teens and early 20s and studied nursing together, they continued to play, eventually scouted to join more competitive teams, first out of Simcoe and then Brantford, from where they would regularly travel across the border to Michigan to compete.
They lived, studied, played and travelled together through that first phase of their lives, and today they live across the hall from each other in their own comfortable suites in Kitchener’s Village of Winston Park. Now in their mid-90s, they look back on their early days with prideful smiles.
“It was a great, great life and a wonderful thing,” Nene says, recalling the thrill of the game and a weekend match-up against a Michigan team that also rostered a set of twins. “It was a long-weekend and the service clubs were looking for entertainment to bring the people in, so it was the ‘twins against the twins,’ that’s how they advertised it.”
With a broad smile, Nan is sure to note that their team came out as the champions that weekend.
It wasn’t long after in 1954 that the sisters graduated with their nursing credentials and their early lifetime of parallel paths would soon diverge. One last adventure awaited, however, before the pull of adult responsibility would overtake them. They answered an advertisement seeking drivers to relocate new cars from Detroit across the continent, and they found themselves motoring west across the country to Los Angeles.
They had seven days to see the wide expanses of the United States, staying in motels and waking early so they could put miles on while leaving enough time to explore the sites of interest or the towns where they landed at day’s end. It was an exciting time, with a finite end awaiting.
Nan had a nursing job awaiting her in Fresno, California, so when the trip ended, the sisters parted for the first time since they took their first breaths.
“When the travelling was done, she stayed and I came back, and that’s when the relationship ended, kind of,” Nene says, still with a twinge of sadness in her voice seven decades later.
“That was a lonely time for me in California,” says Nan, “but time passes and you adjust to things as you go.”
Nene came home and had to adjust, as well, nursing for a short time in the surgical ward at Hamilton General Hospital before getting married and eventually raising six children, which would become her full-time job. Nan would cross the country, soon focusing her expertise on nursing at one of North America’s most recognized hospital’s, Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins, where she worked until retirement in the mid-1980s.
She always remained close with Nene, though, regularly driving 10 hours to visit and arriving every time to a pile of children, all eagerly vying for her attention. When she retired from nursing, Nan came home and while she admits that was another time of great adjustment in her life, a positive outlook and love for her extended family has always carried her through.
She and Nene share that same sense of positivity, just as they shared balance in all they did together in their early years.
“All through life, you've learned to do what you have to do to be satisfied and content,” Nene says,” before her sister finishes the thought.
“You find happiness in whatever you do when you approach life like that,” says Nan, and together they’ve found contentment at Winston Park.
