BELLEVILLE — Sarah Morlok Cotton, the last surviving sister among Lansing’s well-known Morlok quadruplets, has died.
Cotton, age 95, died July 7, according to her obituary. She was a resident of Belleville.
The Morlok sisters were Lansing’s first quadruplets, born on May 19, 1930, at Sparrow Hospital to Sadie and Carl Morlok.
At the time of their birth, quadruplets were rare, the chances of them being born alive about one in 500,000. The sisters, Edna A., Wilma B., Sarah C. and Helen D., became known nationally. The initials for the babies’ first names stand for the first letters of Edward W. Sparrow Hospital. Their middle initials recorded the order of their birth.
The quadruplets performed on stage in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania when they were young. Several books have been written about them over the years. Cotton wrote a book about her experiences, too, entitled “The Morlok Quadruplets: The Alphabet Sisters.”
The Morlok family was part of a medical research study at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, in the 1950s, according to her obituary.
Cotton graduated from Lansing Eastern High School, was also a graduate of Delta Career College of Alexandria, Louisiana, and attended Davenport College and Lansing Community College.
She worked as a legal secretary, including for a British Barristers’ firm in Newmarket, England, was a notary public in Ingham County for four years, and spent time living in “England, Japan and various places in the U.S.,” according to her obituary.
“Sarah will long be remembered as a loving wife and mother and grandmother,” said her obituary. “She was dearly loved and will be missed very much by her son, David A. Cotton, and grandsons and friends.”
Cotton “made a donation of approximately 70 Morlok-Cotton personal family belongings to Sparrow Hospital Archives on May 5, 1995 to be placed on display in a Hall of History there,” it said.
Her funeral services were held July 17 in Lansing.
Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on X @GrecoatLSJ .
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: The last of Lansing’s Morlok quadruplets has died. Who was Sarah Morlok Cotton?
Reporting by Rachel Greco, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
