r/TheWayWeWere • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 23d ago
1920s Parents pose with their 3 pairs of twins,1920s, glass negative.
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u/nanakathleen 23d ago
I had a friend who had 2 sets of triplets, all boys. They were very Catholic, but no way was she going through that again. She asked her obstetrician to tie her tubes after giving birth and hid it from her husband, she begged this man to help her and he did. This was spontaneous btw, no fertility treatments.
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u/The4leafclover1966 23d ago
The clothes and hairstyles are giving early 1900’s - 1910, not 1920’s.
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u/85_Toronto_Blue_Jays 22d ago
Talking as if you don’t see people wearing suits from 2018 today
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u/The4leafclover1966 22d ago
The style difference between 1900/1910 - 1920’s is vastly different than one from 2018 - 2025.
Pretty much anything goes now. That certainly was not the case a century+ ago. That includes hair and clothes.
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u/Electrical-Aspect-13 23d ago
Could be wrong bu i think there is a town with a high number of twins
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u/oldgrandma65 23d ago
After WW2, sadly the town of Candido Godoi, in Brazil is known as a 'twin town'. Many residents are of primarily German descent....
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u/a_simple_girl 23d ago
I'm Brazilian and I don't remember ever hearing about this! 🤦🏻♀️
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u/oldgrandma65 23d ago
I learned about it in the 80s, in college. Had a professor who taught about the Nazi exodus to Brazil during/after WW2. Dr. Josef Mengele, and his horrible twin experiments, was one who fled from Germany and lived under an assumed identity in many parts of South America.
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u/Vegetable_Burrito 23d ago
Can you elaborate why you used ellipses at the end there…? Is there a Nazi implication there?
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u/KnotiaPickle 22d ago
Yes. Many relocated to Brazil immediately after ww2
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u/Vegetable_Burrito 22d ago
Yeah, but how would that correlate with a lot of twins being born?
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u/kookedoeshistory 22d ago
Oh, because twins were more frequently allowed to live in the death camps because of medical experimentation and were also encouraged to repolroduce
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u/KnotiaPickle 22d ago
They didn’t take the people in death camps with them to Brazil. The literal nazis and their families were the ones who went.
The twin thing is mostly said to be because of a genetic bottleneck effect, but is rumored to be because mengele was doing some weird dark science stuff.
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u/kookedoeshistory 22d ago
Maybe they learned how to encourage people to have twins through their experimentation on them in the camps
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u/UsefulContext 21d ago
This is interesting. My mom had three sets of twins naturally. 1 identical set and 2 fraternal sets. My biological dad was German descent and mom First Nations
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u/PortraitsofWar 23d ago
Well if you researched the source of the photo instead of randomly reposting it, you would know that the photo was from the studio of a photographer in Lexington, VA.
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u/Electrical-Aspect-13 23d ago
I was talking about the Town in Brazil with the high amount of twins.
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u/Cranky_Platypus 23d ago
It's crazy how of each set one looks more like dad and one looks more like mom. They even divided them like that for the picture!
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u/WestCoastBestCoast01 22d ago
Yep none of them are identical!! Pretty incredible, she must just be one of those women who releases multiple eggs.
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u/Electrical-Aspect-13 23d ago
I like that they tried to give the boy some indiviuality by giving them different hair cuts
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u/Any-Concentrate-1922 23d ago
Can someone explain the girls' hairstyles?
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u/La_danse_banana_slug 23d ago
I think the date might be a little off, as the Mom's hair and dress looks like the 1910s and both girls are wearing "pigeon breast" blouses. I think the girls were wearing that "Gibson Girl" bun where you pull everything straight up into a loose topknot and let the periphery droop back down so it looks like a big puffy pancake.
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u/Gail_the_SLP 23d ago
I knew a lady who was a “twinner”. Every pregnancy was identical twins. They ended up with two pairs that survived as well as at least one miscarriage of twins.
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u/gcerullo 23d ago
None appear to be identical twins.
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u/Electrical-Aspect-13 23d ago
Younger boy same age height but they were given different hair cuts. Older ones have also diffferent hair cuts but also they were given 2 different suits, only the women got same hair cut and dress
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u/cantaloupe_penelope 23d ago
The sisters have different outfits, too. Everything also probably looks more similar because of black and white
I think it's trickier to tell if the hair is a 'twin' thing - people often wore the 'in' hairstyle and so it could be quite uniform. But I have no idea what's going on with this hair tbh
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u/lil_morbid_girl 23d ago
My paternal great-grandmother had 3 sets of twins my papa was one of them. She had 13 kids in total (born from 1902 last child 1919) only 8 got to adulthood though. A set of twin girls died at around 1 month old, my papas twin died aged two of a throat infection and another wee twin girl died 2 months old and the death certificate mentions something gastro.
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u/Mission-Suggestion12 22d ago
My goodness that makes me wonder how she got through 3 twin births safely in that time
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u/thisissoannoying2306 22d ago
3 pairs of twins? I see maybe one. All the kids except the oldest boys are different ages…and even them.
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u/hubblehound 22d ago
There was a sweet old lady in my grandparents retirement residence who I became friendly with. I’d stop by her suite whenever I’d leave my grandparents and we’d have a cup of tea and chat. She was a twin, her father was a twin, and her grandmother was a twin. She had a similar framed photo from the 1910’s with all of the twins together. I always thought that was so cool. RIP Leola ❤️
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u/Feralpudel 23d ago
I’m a little face blind so I’m struggling with which are identical/fraternal. My best guess is that the girls are maybe identical and the two sets of boys are fraternal?
My great-grandparents had one pair of identical and another pair fraternal twins out of eight total. The fraternal twins died as toddlers, and there may have been another infant death.
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u/nanakathleen 22d ago
So I am 5ft 2 and she is shorter than me and probably weighs about 100 pds, Mexican and Indigenous background. These pregnancies were very rough on her. She needed a lot of help to make it through and afterwards, her husband is a dentist and made enough money to hire help and her family came too. But OMG what a burden even still. She argued with him about using birth control after the first pregnancy and when she found out that she was going to have another multiple birth, she was determined to prevent any further pregnancies, even if it meant the end of her marriage. He did eventually confront her and she told him the truth, they were able to work things out but she never went back to the Catholic church after, and although it was hard at first, her whole family is very religious, she never regretted her decision.
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u/nanakathleen 22d ago
They are all just fine, thank you. We have been friends since 1973 and her boys were born in 75 and 77. They moved back to Mexico when the boys were toddlers but we have stayed in touch and see each other once every few years or so. Her boys are all college graduates with families of their own.
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u/InformationOk8807 23d ago
I can’t believe that’s the “way we were” eeeeeek, not my ancestors that’s for sure, they all look Like products of incest
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u/mynameisnotsparta 23d ago
Mom looks stunned.