Every year thousands of doubles arrive at the national twin festival in Twinsburg, Ohio and this year Jean Henderson, Elkhorn, and her identical sister, Joan Davis of SunCity/Huntley, will be joining in the festivities.
“We just celebrated our 65th birthday” Jean explained, “and decided this was the year to finally go to the twin mecca.”
Every first weekend in August, Twinsburg celebrates all things twin with a parade, race, costumes and lots of contests.
Twins from all over the world congregate, from infants to 90-year-olds.
Jean and Joan anticipate joining in every activity, with their race shoes packed and their parade costumes all set. To go with the theme of Fantasy/Fables, the pair decided to dress as the good and bad witch of Oz. Their unique outfit features a black witch’s costume on one side and a pink princess costume on the other. Jean and Joan will be wearing one shiny red curled-toed shoe and each with half a green face to complete the look and a sign declaring “Which witch is which? When you’re a twin, you can switch!”
“People tell us we sound and act just alike and now that I’ve grown my hair long and colored it auburn to match Jean’s, we are pretty identical” Joan admits. The pair will enter the most lookalike contest.
“We probably won’t win, “Jean adds, “but seeing other doubles will be fun.”
Turning 65 could have been discouraging, but instead the pair threw a big mutual birthday bash at a mansion in Lake Geneva in May.
“We have such a good time together, we decided to celebrate all summer.” Jean remarked.
Soon after they return from Twinsburg they’ll head for Colorado joining 10 other intrepid women on a Llama trek adventure in the Rockies. Being a twin really does double the pleasure they both agreed.
