Double Trouble
Jean Moyer of Harmony and her twin sister, June Davis of Olivia, N.C., live states apart, but each knows where the other will be on the first weekend of August 2013: Twinsburg, Ohio.
It isn't some psychic bond the two share. It's just for the past 20 years they have been going to the town's Twins Days Festival.
Davis has been living in North Carolina for the past 15 years since her husband, Larry, retired from the Army, Moyer said.“If she wasn't able to come home, she'd come back for the festival,” she said.
“I tell everybody if I have to walk from North Carolina to Pennsylvania, I will be there,” said Davis.
Moyer said her sister returns to Harmony so the sisters can prepare together for the festival. They get their hair cut in the same style by their nephew, Jeff McClelland of Harmony, and pick out matching outfits before their 90-minute drive to Twinsburg.
“We emphasize the likeness before we get out there,” said Moyer.
The Twins Days Festival began in 1976 as a way for the Ohio town, about halfway between Akron and Cleveland, to celebrate the Bicentennial. There were 37 sets of twins present the first year.
Since then, the event has expanded to include a parade, contests, the crowning of the king and queen and a twins-only wiener roast and get-together on Friday night.
Sandy Miller, an event organizer, the office manager for the festival and mother of one of the first set of twins to attend in 1976, said this year there were 2,096 sets of “multiples” (twins, triplets and quadruplets) registered for the event.
Miller said the festival drew between 30,000 and 35,000 to Twinsburg, a city of 18,000.
“Originally the name of the village was Millsville,” said Miller. “But for $20 and a piece of property for the school to be built on, twin brothers, Moses and Aaron Wilcox, asked that it be renamed Twinsburg.”
“It had an “H” on it at that time, but it got lost in the shuffle,” said Miller of the the name.
Moyer said when she and Davis first started going to the festival Twinsburg “was a little town like Harmony, now it is growing like Cranberry.”The first year they went in August 1992, Moyer said “I was expecting to see a few twins. We only went on Saturday to see the parade.”“I did not believe there would be that many sets of twins in one spot,” Moyer said. According to fest records, there were 2,681 twins in attendance that year.“I was just overwhelmed at all of the twins,” said Davis. “I just never in my life had seen so many twins, triplets and whatever. You have to see it to believe it.”Moyer said now she and her sister look for the same people each year, for example, twin brother Jeff and Steve Nagle of Ohio or Larry and Gary Lane of Los Angeles.She said it's like a family reunion. The sisters get caught up on what's happened in their friends' lives in the past year.“It's just seeing all of the twins that you have met during the earlier years, and you just keep seeing them year after year,” said Davis.And Davis and Moyer keep meeting more.“They come from all over the world: Australia, Italy, Saudi Arabia,” said Moyer. This year, there were 97-year-old twin brothers who were called “the oldest Steeler fans” and a five-week-old twins.“This year we met sisters from Saudi Arabia,” said Moyer. “They were staying at our hotel. They were 21, 22, but they were going to Pitt. Through someone at Pitt, they learned about the festival.”“They live in the Pittsburgh area now, but they were from Saudi Arabia,” said Davis. “This was their first year. We kind of answered some questions they had about it (the festival.)”“Every time we find out it was the first year, we say we hope to see you next year,” said Davis. “They keep trying for 3,000 sets but they haven't gotten there yet.”But it isn't just renewing acquaintances and meeting new twins that draws the sisters to the festival, there are also the contests and events.There are competitions to find the youngest and oldest twins, the twins who most look alike and those who bear the least resemblance in various age and gender groups.Moyer said she and Davis have been vying for years to win the closest lookalike medal, but the standards are exacting.In choosing, Moyer said, the judges even consider if the entrants are wearing the same watches and earrings.“I have pierced ears and she doesn't, so that's one strike against us,” said Moyer.“We started out competing in the most lookalike and then for the last three years, we've gone in for the oldest,” said Moyer.“If you don't win on Saturday, you go in on Sunday. Last year, we turned 72 and the ladies that beat us were born in April and we were born in August, that was how close it was,” said Moyer.“We've never won a medal,” said Davis. “It's not really disappointing. If you were there to see the other sets of twins that were being judged, when you look at the group you realize why you didn't win,” said Davis.In addition, the twins take part in a twins-only welcome and wiener roast at the Twinsburg high school Friday night, the “Double Take Parade” through the downtown on Saturday and a group picture on the festival grounds.“Saturday, at dusk, they have the most beautiful fireworks I have ever seen. I don't go to the ones here because the ones in August are so pretty,” said Moyer.Moyer said they learned about the festival through Davis' daughter, Donna Wyrick, who had a twin boy and girl in March 1992 and learned of the Twins Days Festival through a mothers of twins club in New Castle.Moyer said her mother's two brothers had sets of twins, but neither she nor her sister did.“My mom didn't know she was having twins until we were born,” said Moyer. “It was the bicentennial in Ellwood City at the time. The hospital wasn't air conditioned. The windows were open and the band was playing 'Roll Out the Barrels.' She said she got two of them.”“When we were born my mom wanted us to have the same initials,” said Moyer. “I was born first and named Awynn Jean Gibson and she was named Alice June Gibson.”Davis and Moyer both lived in the Harmony area until June moved to North Carolina.“In our younger years, we dressed alike and went to school,” Moyer said. “But when we got to high school, sometimes we dressed alike and sometimes we didn't.”“Now the only times we dress alike is when we go to Twinsburg,” she said.“Sometimes we would show up to church or a shower and have the same outfit on, not knowing what each other was wearing,” Moyer said. “Or we would make a meal at suppertime and make the same meal not knowing what the other was doing.”“We still do that every once in a while, and she's in North Carolina and I'm here,” said Moyer.“Sometimes I will pick up the phone to call her and she is calling me,” said Moyer. “It happened when she was living here. It hasn't happened long distance yet.”Moyer and Davis both said their trips to the Twins Days Fest is their own special event.Moyer said her husband, Ray, and daughters, Terri and Cathy, went one year to see what it was all about but since then have been content to let the sisters go alone.“My husband has never gone and my daughter that had twins is the only member of the family that has ever been there,” said Davis.“It's just something for their mother and their aunt to spend together. It's just something that we do the first weekend in August and that's just the way it's been,” said Davis.Both sisters are keeping souvenirs of their many trips to Twinsburg.Moyer said she keeps programs from every year and has made scrapbooks with them, three years to a book.“Some day Twinsburg is hoping to get a museum. If they get that off the ground, those books will go to the museum,” Moyer said.Davis said she has made a quilt from the commemorative T-shirts the festival sells each year.“Around each of the T-shirt squares, there is a cardinal because that's the state bird of Ohio,” said Davis.But both the sisters hope to keep attending the festival and keep collecting mementoes.“I can be with her for the weekend and see all the new twins and old twins. It's just like a potato chip, you can't eat just one,” said Moyer.
