Celebrating Leap Day - 29 February 2016
Dear FOLKS,
While writing up the life events of Oscar Ostrom a few days ago I noticed for the first time that he was a "leapling." According to Wikipedia.com a leapling is a person who is born on Leap Day.
According to www.parents.com, on average is one person in 1,461 are leaplings and that having your birthday on Leap Day as a pretty exceptional event. A look through my family tree that currently contains, 1551 people shows that Oscar is the only known leapling in the tree. So my family is running close to average, although there as still some folks where I am not sure of their birthdate, but I am working to solve that lack of information.
It is with a warm heart that I wish my second great uncle Oscar Ostrom a happy birthday. He was born on 29 February 1884 in Elbow Lake, Minnesota. He was the son and eighth child of Olaus O. Ostrom and Toline G. Paulson. He would live until 1973 when he was 89 years old and had celebrated his true date of birth 22 times.
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| IMAGE: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
On non-leap years, I wonder whether Oscar would have celebrated his birthday on the 28th of February or on March 1. Again according to Wikipedia, in common years, leapling birthdays are traditionally celebrated on February 28th. In some cases, March 1st is used as the birthday in a non-leap year, since it is the day following February 28th.
Another tradition we have for Lear Day is that it is the day when it is acceptable for women to propose marriage to men. I don't have records about this aspect of our family's history, so I can't report how many of our couples became engaged on Leap Day and if it was the woman who did the proposing. But it is a fun thing to think about today as you go about your daily routine.
Wishing you a Happy Leap Day. Thanks for stopping by.
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