Reunited 78 years on, separated twins who led uncannily similar lives on opposite sides of Atlantic
THE last time they were side by side was as babies in their mother’s arms.
But 78 years later, after being separated before they were 20 weeks old, long lost twin sisters named Ann and Elizabeth have finally been reunited.
They spent lifetimes apart in different countries; one never knew she had a sister, the other never knew where her adopted twin might be.
This week they met for the first time – to discover striking parallels in the separate paths they followed.
After hugging and shedding tears of joy, they caught up on old times in their first face - to - face conversation.
Their time apart is said to be the longest that twins have been separated, an unwitting achievement that will give experts extra insight into a fascinating phenomenon.
Despite growing up apart, carving out lives in different cultures and being separated by 5,000 miles, both married someone called Jim, found religion, became grandmothers, then widows.
When they opened the family albums for each other they also discovered that each enjoys goofing about in front of the camera. When they’re together, they share some of the same mannerisms.
They even chose the same words as they approached each other for the first time with arms outstretched: ‘How lovely!’ they said, almost in unison.
The poignant story began when the sisters were born Elizabeth Ann Lamb and Patricia Susan Lamb on February 28, 1936, in Hampshire.
Their father was stationed at Aldershot barracks and had a fling with Alice Lamb, a domestic servant for a well-to-do family nearby. He never saw his daughters.
Alice, who would almost certainly have been stigmatised for having children out of wedlock, and would probably have had to abandon her job to bring up two babies simulta- neously, for Hector adoption. and was Gladys Patricia forced Wilson, to was offer raised a them local by family, who named her Ann.
But Elizabeth had curvature of the spine and was deemed unsuitable for adoption. So Alice kept her and called on friends and an aunt to help raise her. She was 15 before her mother told her she had a twin who was adopted, but she didn’t try to trace her sibling while her mother was alive. And when Alice died in 1980, the adoption papers and other records had been lost. Elizabeth moved to Chester, joined the Royal Navy and married an American sailor. The couple set- tled in Portland, Oregon, and raised two boys there. Coincidentally, Ann discovered her past at almost the same time as Elizabeth. Her aunt told her the Wilsons were not her natural parents and she immediately went home to ask her stepmother. She cannot explain it now, but the way My Jim: Ann with her husband Jim Hunt on their wedding day she phrased the question might have been significant. Although she never knew she was a twin, she asked: ‘Were we adopted?’
She was happy to remain in Aldershot for the rest of her life, marrying, becoming a printer and raising three daughters.
It was her daughter Samantha, 43, who discovered during some family tree research that mum appeared to have a sister. She traced her to America and after much research and several setbacks was able to tell her mother: ‘She’s your twin!’
An overjoyed Ann wrote to Elizabeth at the address Samantha had unearthed. Elizabeth described the moment she saw the Aldershot postmark and read the letter. ‘My eyes popped out of my head,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t get on the phone fast enough to give her a call.
‘I had tried to trace her over the years but it seemed an impossible
‘I was so excited I could hardly speak’
task. I had no idea where in the world she might be or even whether she was still alive.’
At the other end of the phone, Ann recalls: ‘I was so excited I could hardly speak. I’m so happy. I feel now I’ve known her all my life.’
They finally met in person on Thursday near Los Angeles and quickly began to pore over photos in search of similarities.
They do not believe they are identical twins but researchers will establish this through DNA testing, before conducting extensive interviews with them.
The research, by the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, will be used to look into ways of combating inherited disease and learning about the ageing process.
Meanwhile Elizabeth (she boasts she’s 20 minutes older than her little sister) was amazed that Ann had never left Aldershot. So yesterday she was organising a reunion party back home in Oregon – with her new-found sister as the star guest.