Twinning

 

Twinning

I have always had exposure to twins in my life.  Oh, that makes it sound like a communicable disease.  Let me rephrase, I have enjoyed having twins in my family and otherwise.  Growing up, our neighbors across the street had identical twin girls, Judy and Jill.  They were hard to tell apart and cute as a button. My maternal grandmother was a twin.  She was named Vola and her twin was Lola.  My grandmother was the runt, quite smaller than her sister.  I think they were fraternal.  My paternal grandfather had twin sisters named Stella and Della.  As a child, I heard of them often, but don’t remember meeting them.  I married an identical twin, Jerry Ray…his older brother by 22 minutes is named Gerry Jay.  It indicates they are identical on their birth certificates.  They were truly look-alikes, but it was their voice and mannerisms that made them so alike.  My youngest son married a young lady whose father is a twin.  His name is Terry and his twin is Jerry.  Ironically, my husband Jerry’s brother was almost named Terry instead of Gerry. Both Joshua and his wife have fathers who are twins, but I don’t think that will affect their chances of having twins, because twins originate from the maternal side.  Rhyming names seemed to be the norm back then, or at the very least, the names began with the same letter.  My sister and I, who are only 18 months apart, were often mistaken for twins as we were roughly the same size.  We are named Pam and Tammy, thus adding to the confusion.  In addition, mother often dressed us alike.  I wholeheartedly thought me or one of my cousins on my mother’s side would produce twins in our generation.  I had always heard that it skips generations and with having a grandmother twin it was almost guaranteed.  None of us had twins.

On my paternal side, none of us cousins had twins either, however, we produced 13 grandchildren, 10 of them boys.  All of these cousins had either all boys or all girls, no boy/girl combinations.  Among the ten, however, only one could carry on with the family name.  Roger Paschal was the sole male Paschal among us. He was successful in having two sons of his own with his wife Kathy.  The first offspring born to his son Blake was a little girl, Elsie Faye, but recently Blake’s wife had a baby boy, Holston Roger Paschal!  This boy has the destiny of Paschal’s family tree in his future. I digress.  In a nutshell, my dad and all of his brothers had only girls except for Frank Paschal, who had only one child, a son, Roger Dean Paschal, to carry on with the family name. 

This association with so many twins in my life is fascinating to me, as is the legacy of the Paschal name. 

Samuel Jr: Chrylene Paschal-> 2 girls

Margaret: Ricky Jett-> 3 boys

Margaret: Fonda Jett-> 2 boys

Doris: no children, never married

John: Pam Paschal-> 1 girl

John: Tammy Paschal-> 3 boys

Frank: Roger Paschal-> 2 boys

Tammy Harvey  9/4/2025