I remember vividly the cold January morning we came downstairs and found out that Mama had TWO babies in the bassinette beside her bed. A doctor who had recently returned from tending our servicemen during WWII went directly to a dance hall where he bragged that he just delivered his first TWINS and so everyone in our little town knew it before we did.

Fannie had come to take care of us and our house and to make sure Mama spent the required ten days in bed. None of us liked her cooking and wished she wasn't there but Mama kept having babies so fast that Daddy kept Fannie for several years.

There had been a brother, a sister, another brother and then two sisters; all separate births between me and the twins and Mama's habit was to have us "visit" our new sibling one at a time in her room.

She would introduce us and let us hold the infant and tell us to talk to it for a few minutes before she allowed us to give it a kiss on the cheek.

Fannie made a big show of escorting my three older sisters in to see our twins and then announced that she wasn't going to allow me into Mama's room because I was "sick." Mama yelled, "Who’s sick?" "Barbara?" "What's the matter with her?"

"She's got a cold. She's coughing." (I never coughed) Mama said she didn't hear any coughing and they argued about me seeing the twins until Mama got out of bed and came to the kitchen.

Fannie didn't know that when all the other children had chickenpox, measles, and whooping cough, I didn't catch anything - nor that the doctor had told Mama he thought I was naturally immune to diseases.

Mama knew I didn't have a cold. Once Mama determined that Fannie apparently thought she was in charge of EVERYTHING, she told Fannie she was to let me in to see the babies if she knew what was good for her . And I decided I wasn't going to mind Fannie, no matter what. I refused to move from my chair and she soon found out she wasn't strong enough to pull me to my feet - and calling on my three older sisters didn't help. I did NOT stand until Mama called to me. Then I went in her room and cried the whole time as I held one twin first, and then the other.

Only Mama knew which twin was which for about three months. She only knew because she kept a tiny gold safety pin in the sleeve of the firstborn.

At around three months, they started looking more and more different. By the time they were four months old, David's blonde hair and blue eyes had turned brown while Donald's remained. Eventually David looked like Mama's male relatives and Donald looked like Daddy's father.

Mama said the doctor told her the twins were identical because there was only one placenta and she went to her grave wondering why her identical twins didn't look like one another at all. She'd talk about it and then tell whoever was listening how much they ACTED alike.

They frequently sent her the same Mother's Day cards and if one sent a few dollars the other did also, and it would be the same amount. No matter where they lived or how much money they made, they seemed to gravitate into stores where they purchased the exact same pieces of clothing.

However, my adult twin brothers' appearances were completely different. David was about 6" shorter than Donald and had a different body build. David had a heart attack at age 32 and died less than 20 years later. He married, fathered four children, and always stayed close to home.

Donald also married, fathered three sons, divorced, married a second time, and has constantly gone from woman to woman since he ended his first marriage.

My daughter is a midwife and she told me sometimes when space is at a premium in the womb the two placentas of fraternal twins meld and it only looks like one when they're born. Donald weighed 7 lbs. 7 ounces and David 7 lbs. 2 ounces. Either infant outweighed the average male. I think originally there were two placentas - and they did meld due to crowding.

Barbara

Hadley, Massachusetts