Ten babies were born to Clabe and Leora Wilson. Four of them were sets of fraternal twins.
Leora already had three little ones by the time Dale and Darlene were born in Stuart, Iowa, in 1921. Two more singles were born before the next twins, Jack and Jean, arrived in Dexter in 1929. Jack and Jean were just infants when all nine Wilson youngsters came down with whooping cough. They were the only two who succumbed to the disease.
Grandma Leora said that she’d had miscarriages before both sets of twins. I believe the first time was a result of her suffering so during the influenza pandemic. So many who died of that pandemic were young parents. If a pregnant woman survived the influenza, her unborn child likely would not.
I couldn’t find any other twins in the family until I discovered that Clabe Wilson’s father (Daniel Ross Wilson) had a twin brother who didn’t survive. I’ve heard that twins tend to arrive every other generation.
Are there twins in your family?
Darlene and Dale are so cute. Guess what? My name is Darlene Dale! What a coincidence.
So sad about little Jack and Jean. The only twins in our very large family are my second cousins, Maureen and Doreen and my first cousins, Terry and Larry.
What fun, Darlene Dale!
How unusual to give birth to two sets of twins. One of my cousins and her husband tried to have children for years. At some point, she took fertility drugs. The result? She gave birth to triplets. You can imagine the challenges of first-time parents going from no children to three in one day, but they found their way and made it work.
Wow, triplets! Thanks, Pete! After we learned that Dan would be an only, I sorta wished we’d had twins so he’d have a sibling. I would have also had an additional connection to Grandma Leora!
None here. Your grandparents were extremely strong people to endure the deaths of some many children.
Clabe didn’t survive the WWII losses, but Leora lived another four decades as a cheer-filled grandmother. Amazing.
Having both twins succumb to whooping cough must have been so hard for the family to bear.
My mother and her sister were fraternal twins, although they looked exactly alike. I haven’t run across any others in our family tree.
Thank you, Liz. Even after the twins died, there were several more weeks of misery for the surviving seven. Did you mother and her sister dress alike?
You’re welcome, Joy. Oh, yes, my mother and her sister dressed alike. My grandmother made all of their clothes. I think that they broke away from dressing alike once they hit high school age.
That would make sense. . . .
The obituary for the twins was written so sweetly. Their loss must have been tragic for the family. Both my grandmothers were twins, but none of my cousins on either side, nor myself, had twins. Maybe if we each had more children, one of us would have eventually hit the jackpot! 🙂
The family still included seven sick children and it was the beginning of real poverty for them. Just the beginning of several tough years. They lost another infant two years later. Both grandmother were twins, wow!
Leora and Clabe had to have sought solace in the Good Lord, or how else could they have carried on?
Leora certainly did. Clabe was a shy man and didn’t attend church with his family. Thank you, Nancy.
No twins in my family. Darlene and Dale are sure good-looking. It would be heartbreaking to lose Jack and Jean.
Thanks, Tim. Delbert said that Jack and Jean looked like Dale and Darlene did as babies.
Amazed no more twins have shown up in the family. But I think it might partly be because people have smaller families.
Thanks, Chris. I think you may be right!
My mother was born in 1934. She got whopping cough and lost a whole year of kindergarten. I think people forget how hard these times really were. And yet, with grace and dignity, people like your grandmother were brave and strong and knew that God would care for these little ones in heaven above. They had to be strong for their families…more children that needed love and care. My father’s father died from pneumonia at the age of 32. My father, who was born in 1929 never got to meet his dad here on earth. My grandfather’s final words to my grandmother were this: “With God’s help, the children will grow and flourish.” My grandmother was pregnant with my dad, but those words held true. Thank you for sharing these stories…So beautiful that the community showed so much love and support to the family. (We have a lot of twins in our family.)
Oh, Linda, your note is so poignant. The Wilson youngsters also lost a lot of school. There was talk that Delbert and Donald wouldn’t be able to graduate from 8th grade with their class, but they agreed (along with their parents) to do schoolwork into the summer, if need be, so they got to graduate. So your grandmother had two children to raise alone during the Depression? How hard that must have been, even with God’s help. Thank you, Linda.