Twin memories from my mom!

As the mother of Debbie LaChusa and her twin sister, Valerie Stangle, I would like to share my story. My husband, Dale, and I had the girls November 11, 1961 less than one year after we were married on December 26, 1960. We wanted to start our family right away so you can imagine our delight when we discovered that I was pregnant with twins.

Twins were not as common in the 60’s as they are now. The grandparents-to-be were very excited as well.

When it came time to bring the girls home from the hospital after they were born, I asked Dale to bring the beautiful baby comforters that we had been given. I didn’t think about how slippery the comforters were.

I remember sitting in a wheel chair, a beautiful baby girl in each arm, ready to go home and praying that they would not slide out of their covers.

Once home, we had many bottles of formula to prepare and lots of diapers to wash and fold. No pre-folded diapers in those days and we did not have diaper service.

I always remember when Dale made a double batch of formula late at night and left it on the stove to cool as directed so he could put it in the refrigerator. He fell asleep and had to pour all the formula down the kitchen drain because we were afraid it had spoiled. He started over at 2:00 a.m. and made a new batch. That was a labor of love from a brand new father.

Keeping these two babies on some kind of feeding schedule so mom and dad could get a chance to eat dinner became a challenge. It was dad that came up with an idea! He tied a string to the mobile over Debbie’s bed, ran the string through the living room and attached it to the kitchen table. Because Debbie was the smaller of the twins, she would wake up first, fuss, cry, and wake Valerie who was still sleeping soundly. What a great solution - when Debbie started to fuss, all dad had to do was tug the string, the mobile would move, Debbie would be distracted and Valerie got a little more sleep before she woke up. And, mom and dad got a few bites of dinner before it got too cold.

When the girls were just old enough to walk and get into trouble, I remember one day when they were playing in their bedroom. All the sudden, it became way too quiet. I walked in to see what Valerie and Debbie were doing and found them having great fun pulling all my nicely folded diapers from the shelves where I had neatly stacked them. They were unfolding all the diapers and dumping them on their bedroom floor. Of course, I had to refold all those diapers and stack them up again. I can still see that funny picture in my mind!

As any twin and all mothers of twins know, Debbie and Valerie were great companions and always had someone to play with. Of course, there were fights; hair pulling and sibling rivalry but they also had a lot of fun. They have given us many good memories.

Joan McKasson
San Diego, California