Utah family's birthday odds are off chart

Although he was unaware of it at the time, from the moment he was born on Feb. 29, 1952, Bill Freeze was bucking the odds.

He had entered the world on the least likely day to arrive. Statistically, just one person out of 1,461 is born on Leap Day when the celebrated odd day rolls around every four years.

Then, a couple of hours later when Bill's cousin, Trel Wetcher, was born to Aunt Betty, he was really getting into the statistical improbabilities.

And 28 years after that, when Bill's wife, Linda, gave birth to their fourth daughter, Camille, on Feb. 29, 1980, he was pretty much off the mathematical charts.

The Internet says the chances of two people in the same family being born on Leap Day are approximately 2.1 million to 1.

And there is no chart anywhere that even guesses at the odds of a person and a cousin and a daughter all being born on Leap Day.

Freeze, a former BYU football player who lives in Lindon and sells real estate in Utah County, is quick to disavow any suggestions that he engaged in any shenanigans coinciding with Camille's birth on her dad's birthday.

"Honestly, she wasn't induced, it wasn't Caesarean, it was natural childbirth," he says.

He remembers it like it was yesterday, which, in his world, it almost was: "On the night of the 28th Linda started to feel contractions, and sure enough, about 6 the next morning Cami was born. The only person mildly disappointed was my mother, who was born on March 2."

"I'd always thought Feb. 29 was a great birthday," Bill continues. "But when little Cami was born it made it the greatest birthday ever."

Bill is quick to list the advantages of having a birthday only once every four years.

For one thing, it keeps you young: today, he points out, he turned 14 and Cami turned seven.

For another thing, it gives your loved ones plenty of time to plan a major bash.

"Every four years my wife pulls out all the stops," says Bill, who notes that Linda has reserved an LDS meetinghouse and invited 50 to 100 of his closest friends to tonight's big party.

For yet another thing, few people, even casual acquaintances, forget your birthday.

"I still get birthday wishes from people I went to high school with," says Bill, the only Leap Day kid of the 1,100 students in his Indiana high school.