Photography by Kathy Tran
Stephanie Hindall and Jennifer Svelan are the social directors of Catherine Street.
Most neighbors on their block come to “Catherine Street happy hour” around their fire pit.
These two across-the-street neighbors are cousins, but they act like twins.
They accidentally dress alike all the time.
“Like if I’m wearing a green shirt, she will come out wearing a green shirt,” Hindall says.
And they constantly “jinx” each other, saying the same thing at the same time, laughing and pointing at each other when they do.
Hindall and Svelan are the daughters of two sisters who emigrated from Colombia in the early 1970s. The cousins were born a few months apart in the same Dallas hospital, delivered by the same doctor.
“Our mothers were immigrants, so we didn’t have extended family to rely on,” Hindall says. “We grew up like sisters.”
She moved to Oak Cliff in 2006, and her dad has lived here since the ’80s. When the house across the street went on the market, she convinced Svelan to buy it.
“I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Svelan says of living in Ravinia Heights.
They always take vacations together and had to cancel plans to visit Morocco last year. Their most recent trip was to Scotland and Ireland in 2019.
In Galway, they were surprised that pubs close at 11 p.m., but they fell in with a group of men who told them,“Follow us.”
“They kept calling themselves publicans,” Svelan says.
President Trump had been in the area around that time, and she told Hindall, “Do NOT mention politics!”
That was before they learned that “publicans” are pub owners, and they found themselves in an after- hours speakeasy with professional Irish drinkers, singing and swaying ’til the wee hours.
“We make friends everywhere we go,” Hindall says.
