Speaker 1: Even in death, Moses and Aaron Wilcox stuck together. They
Speaker 1: were twins, after all, and identical ones at that. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's cliche to say this, but the fact was that
Speaker 1: they did everything together. They went to the same school,
Speaker 1: started a business, married sisters, and had the same number
Speaker 1: of children. Even in their pastoral hometown of killing Worth, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: their friends and neighbors, the people who should have known
Speaker 1: them best, were often stumped when playing Who's Who. To
Speaker 1: think of one without the other was inconceivable to other people, yes,
Speaker 1: but even more so to themselves. As far as we know,
Speaker 1: Moses and Aaron weren't keen on separation and independence. Quite
Speaker 1: the opposite. In fact, they were far more interested in
Speaker 1: doubling down on their twindom, so much so that they
Speaker 1: decided they were going to create a lasting legacy based
Speaker 1: on this very principle, their own twin utopia. Smack in
Speaker 1: the northeastern corner of Ohio, the brothers Wilcox got some land,
Speaker 1: moved west, and found themselves in the sparsely populated township
Speaker 1: of Millsville. But to have a town, you must have people,
Speaker 1: So Moses and Aaron quickly got to work. They began
Speaker 1: buying and parceling off the land for a steel bringing
Speaker 1: in more and more settlers. Eventually they would make Millsville
Speaker 1: and offer they'd give the town six free acres to
Speaker 1: be developed into a public square, plus a bit of
Speaker 1: seed money to create the town's first school, and in return,
Speaker 1: all the town needed to do was changed its name
Speaker 1: from Millsville to Twinsburg. The town readily accepted the deal,
Speaker 1: and the name stuck. Not only did it stick, but
Speaker 1: the town has continued to grow in ways the brothers
Speaker 1: could never have dreamed. The twin identity has become so
Speaker 1: baked into the DNA of that town that every summer
Speaker 1: since nineteen six it hosts the Twins Day Festival. It's
Speaker 1: the largest annual gathering of twins in the world, with
Speaker 1: thousands of pairs attending. Naturally, Singleton's and other kinds of
Speaker 1: multiples are welcome, but for this occasion, the twosomes are
Speaker 1: the stars. There are all sorts of contests, parades, and
Speaker 1: talent shows at the festival. Twins come dressed in matching sets,
Speaker 1: hoping to play up their likeness, and it's there, more
Speaker 1: than anywhere else in the world, where they can be
Speaker 1: among people who experienced the same rare fortune of sharing
Speaker 1: real estates in a single uterus. But there's something else there,
Speaker 1: because it's more than just a celebration of twindom. In fact,
Speaker 1: the festival functions as an ongoing scientific investigation centering around
Speaker 1: the question of nature versus nurture. For years, Twinsburg is
Speaker 1: drawn researcher is interested in studying the effects of genetics
Speaker 1: on behavior, personality, predispositions, and diseases. Festival participants, for their parts,
Speaker 1: are often more than happy to oblige. It's not uncommon
Speaker 1: to hear stories of multiples being separated at birth, only
Speaker 1: to find each other years later, and sometimes with uncanny results.
Speaker 1: These siblings, who often haven't known the other has existed
Speaker 1: for their entire life, have been known to develop similar interests, mannerisms,
Speaker 1: and temperaments. Some would also talk about the feeling that
Speaker 1: a piece of themselves had been missing. Scientists are only
Speaker 1: now beginning to develop ideas about why this might be,
Speaker 1: but we certainly have a long way to go in
Speaker 1: our understanding. And as for Moses and Aaron, they would
Speaker 1: go on to spend the rest of their lives together.
Speaker 1: In fact, that the age of fifty, they have said
Speaker 1: that they became sick on the very same day and
Speaker 1: died within hours of each other, and not wishing to
Speaker 1: ever change that they were even buried in the same grave.
Speaker 1: I probably don't need to tell you that families are complicated.
Speaker 1: Sibling relationships are at the heart of so many great stories,
Speaker 1: from old myths, religious lessons, folk tales, and even true crime.
Speaker 1: Although our genetic makeup might make siblings appear similar, they
Speaker 1: often can't be more different, and that genetic lottery, a
Speaker 1: random ticket plucked from the grab bag of d n
Speaker 1: A is something that will never be able to escape.
Speaker 1: I'm Aaron Manky and welcome to the side show. Depending
Speaker 1: on where you're listening right now, you may be able
Speaker 1: to see it tonight. Gemini, one of the most recognizable
Speaker 1: constellations in the world, is made up of eighty five
Speaker 1: stars that are visible to the naked eye. It's too
Speaker 1: brightest stars. Castor and Pollox are named after some of
Speaker 1: the most famous twins in Greek mythology, and their pedigree
Speaker 1: was nothing to sniff ats either. Their mother was a
Speaker 1: princess who later became a Spartan queen. The boys had
Speaker 1: two different fathers, though Castor was the mortal son of
Speaker 1: tim Dareus, while Pollox was the divine son of Zeus.
Speaker 1: The myth tells us that when Castor was fatally wounded
Speaker 1: later in life, Zeus offered his son Pollocks a choice
Speaker 1: spend his time as a demigod on Mount Olympus or
Speaker 1: give half of his immortality to his brother. Pollocks chose
Speaker 1: to save his twin and gave him half his immortality,
Speaker 1: and in doing so they would travel together between Mount
Speaker 1: Olympus and Hades in equal measure, never again to be separated.
Speaker 1: In the story of human history, the specter of twins
Speaker 1: looms large. For eons. Stories of twins have belonged to
Speaker 1: the realms of old world religion and folklore. Thinkers have
Speaker 1: been obsessed with understanding their nature. Accounting for only three
Speaker 1: percent of natural births, their cultural effect has been outsized
Speaker 1: and profound. Scientific curiosity about twins goes back to ancient times. Hippocrates,
Speaker 1: the famous physician, wrote about a pair of brothers who
Speaker 1: he suspected as being twins, based on the fact that
Speaker 1: the two became sick with the same illness at the
Speaker 1: same time, which progressed at the same rate and then
Speaker 1: cleared up simultaneously. The modern scientific study of identical twins, though,
Speaker 1: seems to have begun around eighteen seventy five with Sir
Speaker 1: Francis Galton, the cousin of another than Charles Darwin. The
Speaker 1: most common twins are fraternal, meaning that two babies are
Speaker 1: born from two different fertilized eggs. Identical twins result from
Speaker 1: the splitting of a single egg, and the most rare
Speaker 1: form of all are twins who are born conjoined, the
Speaker 1: result of an incomplete separation of an early embryo. Conjoined
Speaker 1: twins are further classified according to how and where they
Speaker 1: are joined, and they can be fused just about anywhere,
Speaker 1: sharing any number of body parts and internal organs. Now,
Speaker 1: historically such births have caused quite an alarm, often being
Speaker 1: blamed on the devil or witchcraft. Interestingly, one of the
Speaker 1: first recorded attempts to surgically separate conjoined twin boys was
Speaker 1: in the Byzantine Empire during the tenth century, but the
Speaker 1: first successful surgical separation of conjoined twins was in Switzerland
Speaker 1: in sight nine. Twins have appeared on stage for just
Speaker 1: about as long. For his part. P. T. Barnum began
Speaker 1: billing twins as living curiosities, highlighting their otherness alongside his
Speaker 1: other born and manufactured x. The questions were always suggested
Speaker 1: to the audience. Were they one person, were they too?
Speaker 1: Who would they be without the other? And could they
Speaker 1: or should they be separated? Many can join twins undergo
Speaker 1: surgery so they can lead more independent lives, but for some,
Speaker 1: choosing to stay together has offered something more attractive, the
Speaker 1: path to fame and prosperity. Their birth foreshadowed disaster, or
Speaker 1: so king rama, the second of Siam thought for the
Speaker 1: price of a few inches of connective tissue at their
Speaker 1: stern um. The boys were condemned to death, but fortunately
Speaker 1: for conjoined twins Chang and Eng, their sentence was never
Speaker 1: carried out. In fact, they're pos sit of celebrity was
Speaker 1: uncommon in a world where physical differences were often treated
Speaker 1: as oddities. The brothers were no social pariahs. By age ten,
Speaker 1: the brothers had entered the workforce. They had lost five
Speaker 1: of their siblings and their father to cholera. With a
Speaker 1: purchase of a fishing boats and reputation in the duck
Speaker 1: egg trade, they became quite popular among their neighbors. In
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty four, when they were thirteen years old, the
Speaker 1: boys had gone for a swim. There they caught the
Speaker 1: eye of a Scottish merchant named Robert Hunter, who, according
Speaker 1: to his retelling, at first assumed them to be some
Speaker 1: sort of creature. He said, he quickly realized his mistake,
Speaker 1: but still considered the potential of their monstrosity again his
Speaker 1: word not mine, and began to think about exhibiting them.
Speaker 1: Roberts and an American sea captain named Able Coffin approached
Speaker 1: the boys and their mother, Nock, hoping to have her
Speaker 1: sign off on his plans. Robert was also tasked with
Speaker 1: convincing the same King of Siam to give them permission
Speaker 1: to go abroad. The king was excited about the positive
Speaker 1: press the boys would elicit for their small country and
Speaker 1: was eager to establish deeper ties with western developed nations.
Speaker 1: For a thirty month contract with her sons, Roberts and
Speaker 1: Able paid Knock the sum of five dollars. The accounts
Speaker 1: of the transaction vary widely. Were they sold or simply
Speaker 1: entrusted into the men's care. Who did Chang Nang belong
Speaker 1: to the market for oriental curiosities was flourishing in the West,
Speaker 1: and Chang and Yang's compound ethnic and physical makeup was
Speaker 1: irresistible in the eyes of the showman. Their first stop
Speaker 1: in America would be Boston, where they were billed as
Speaker 1: the Siamese Double Boys, and they were an instant sensation.
Speaker 1: Unlike other acts at the time, the boys were not
Speaker 1: taught to do tricks or otherwise perform. Rather, they were
Speaker 1: allowed to conduct themselves as they saw fit, though they
Speaker 1: eventually would take to performing feats of strength. The price
Speaker 1: to see them was high, though, with tickets often selling
Speaker 1: for the modern quivalent of about one dollars. Now. Where
Speaker 1: other sideshow acts were put on stage and seen as
Speaker 1: a spectacle, Chang and Aaning position themselves more like hosts
Speaker 1: at a tea party, entertaining and conversing with curious guests
Speaker 1: with bits of English, and this hallmark, the one of respectability,
Speaker 1: would prove to be a lifelong pillar of the brother's identities.
Speaker 1: They pursued their own independence outside of their management, aligning
Speaker 1: themselves with society's upper crust who came to see them. Frequently.
Speaker 1: They would entertain doctors and other spectators who addressed the
Speaker 1: question of separation. It was usually the doctors who would
Speaker 1: approach them, but the brothers were also known to seek
Speaker 1: out the Council on their own. Chang and Eng were
Speaker 1: known to fight ferociously from time to time and had
Speaker 1: wildly different personalities. By twenty one, they pursued total independence
Speaker 1: and announced that they had fulfilled all contractual obligations that
Speaker 1: had brought them abroad in the first place. Striking out
Speaker 1: on their own, they would finally get into business for themselves.
Speaker 1: They traveled to Europe, they traveled across North America. They
Speaker 1: adopted an American style of dress, save for their long
Speaker 1: braided hair. Chang and Ang were already positioning themselves not
Speaker 1: as servants, slaves, or beholden to others, but rather as
Speaker 1: agents in their own right. One thing they could not escape, though,
Speaker 1: was the social order they found themselves in. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it would still never be white.
Speaker 1: But by the end of the eighteen thirties, the twins
Speaker 1: began to entertain the idea of retirement. They made their
Speaker 1: way to Wilkes County, North Carolina and purchased one hundred
Speaker 1: fifty acres of land. The newly minted U S citizens
Speaker 1: also adopted a new American surname. They would now be
Speaker 1: called Chang and Ang Bunker, they settled into their American identity.
Speaker 1: They attended church, opened a local store, and eventually took
Speaker 1: up farming. And what's more, they each married on April
Speaker 1: thirteenth of eighteen forty three, in true American fashion, Chang
Speaker 1: En Ang married the farmers daughters from down the way.
Speaker 1: Chang married Adelaide Yates, and Ang married her sister Sarah
Speaker 1: Ann in a proper Baptist church wedding. The papers, of course,
Speaker 1: were all a twitter at what they called a be
Speaker 1: steel union, but within ten months both couples welcomed their
Speaker 1: first child, and over the next three decades, Chang and
Speaker 1: Ang and their respective wives would have a total of
Speaker 1: twenty one children. The two families moved into a larger
Speaker 1: house and began farming tobacco and several other crops. They
Speaker 1: would eventually build two houses side by side for each
Speaker 1: nuclear family and spend alternating days at each. They became
Speaker 1: gifted carpenters, horse breeders, and marksman. Chang and Yang, who
Speaker 1: had once been leased out as human exhibits, purchased dozens
Speaker 1: of enslaved people to maintain their farms. It seems they
Speaker 1: had no limits when it came to amassing the trappings
Speaker 1: of white aristocracy. But their retirement wasn't to last. They
Speaker 1: returned to the stage on and off in the intervening years,
Speaker 1: even passing through P. T. Barnum's American Museum. At one
Speaker 1: point it was said that he was resentful that he
Speaker 1: hadn't been the one to discover them, and that they
Speaker 1: found him to be quite stingy and exploitative. They paused
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty one with the outbreak of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: Slaveholders and secessionists as they were, they backed the Confederacy,
Speaker 1: suffering many great losses, with the deaths of two daughters
Speaker 1: and almost total economic ruin. The pair continued to tour
Speaker 1: the country after the war, but by this time their
Speaker 1: health was beginning to fail, and Chang's drinking, which had
Speaker 1: already been quite heavy, became even worse. It didn't help
Speaker 1: that their appeal as a form of entertainment was also
Speaker 1: beginning to wane. Barnum had evidently offered to send them
Speaker 1: on a tour through Europe and offered Chang, and Ang
Speaker 1: took him up on in late eighteen sixty eight. While there,
Speaker 1: they once again consulted with several doctors about the possibility
Speaker 1: of separating them, but were repeatedly told that it would
Speaker 1: be much too dangerous. And then, in July of eighteen seventy,
Speaker 1: on their way back from Europe, Chang suffered a stroke
Speaker 1: connected only at the stern um. Chang and Yang's bodies
Speaker 1: seemed to be aging at different rates. Chang's condition would
Speaker 1: never improve, with his brother physically and spiritually shouldering the
Speaker 1: weight of their inevitable demise. It said that in the
Speaker 1: last years of their life, they became obsessed with their
Speaker 1: own mortality. They knew their time was coming, cruel and
Speaker 1: dreadful it would be. They thought they have to carry
Speaker 1: on with the other's corpse at his side. They didn't
Speaker 1: have to wait long, though. Chang would eventually catch a
Speaker 1: fatal case of bronchitis, and Ang, it said, died of
Speaker 1: fright before doctors could rush in for an emergency separation attempt.
Speaker 1: They both passed away on January of eighteen seventy four
Speaker 1: at the age of sixty two, just a few hours
Speaker 1: apart the train can doctor has never understood why the
Speaker 1: girls only traveled on one ticket, after all, it was
Speaker 1: clear that there were two of them. The girls went
Speaker 1: by the collective hyphenated Millie Christine, and although they fully
Speaker 1: acknowledged their two personhood, they really only had one body,
Speaker 1: so one seat was all they were going to pay
Speaker 1: for a little less than fifteen years after Chang and
Speaker 1: Aang Bunker initially retired. In North Carolina, Millie Christine McCoy
Speaker 1: had been born into slavery the opposite side of the state.
Speaker 1: The girls had two hearts, two sets of lungs and intestines,
Speaker 1: two bladders, and were conjoined at the base of the spine.
Speaker 1: But it was only ten months after they were born
Speaker 1: that their career began. Their first visit to the North
Speaker 1: Carolina State Fair build them as the North Carolina Twins
Speaker 1: and the Double Headed Girl. They were allowed to be
Speaker 1: examined by medical men to indeed certify that they weren't
Speaker 1: a fraud, that they were well the real McCoy. And
Speaker 1: as horrible as those examinations sound, we know this is
Speaker 1: an expectation that had been long impressed upon side show performers.
Speaker 1: Millie Christine had the compounded problem of being born into
Speaker 1: legal enslavements. At birth, they didn't even belong to themselves.
Speaker 1: The question that was on every spectator's mind was the
Speaker 1: same as when folks went to see Chang and hang,
Speaker 1: could they be separated? And more perversely, would they be
Speaker 1: able to bear children? And what would the mechanics of
Speaker 1: that even be. The girls were soon sold to a
Speaker 1: fellow by the name of Joseph Pearson Smith, and in
Speaker 1: a rash of business dealings gone awry, they were kidnapped.
Speaker 1: The swindler, it seems, began exhibiting them privately to small
Speaker 1: groups in various cities along the East Coast, during which
Speaker 1: time they once again changed many hands, turning up as
Speaker 1: side show acts are wont to do at Barnum's American
Speaker 1: Museum in New York City in eighteen fifty four. By
Speaker 1: the summer of eighteen fifty five, Millie Christine ended up
Speaker 1: in Quebec, Canada, in the hands of two showmen, William
Speaker 1: Thompson and William Miller, who claimed to have found Millie
Speaker 1: Christine in Boston. They soon took off to Liverpool, England,
Speaker 1: where Miller then stole Millie Christine and headed to London,
Speaker 1: where the twins were examined by more physicians and exhibited
Speaker 1: to the public for a shilling pert ticket. Thompson eventually
Speaker 1: caught up with Miller and took up to court the crime.
Speaker 1: Thompson felt Miller was guilty of stealing his property. However,
Speaker 1: slavery was no longer legal in England, but Thompson was
Speaker 1: awarded the closest thing to it, guardianship of Millie Christine.
Speaker 1: Back in the States, where enslavement was in its final
Speaker 1: legal years, Joseph Pearson Smith remember him, was alerted to
Speaker 1: their whereabouts. He proceeded to purchase Millie Christine's entire family
Speaker 1: from their original owner. Because he had a plan, Joseph
Speaker 1: traveled to England, bringing Millie Christine's mother, Monemia in tow.
Speaker 1: They caught up with Thompson and the twins in Birmingham
Speaker 1: and January of eighteen thirty seven, and accompanied by a
Speaker 1: group of disguised policemen, the girls were taken away in
Speaker 1: a flurry of draw Mamma. Later, Millie Christine was said
Speaker 1: to have looked back on this as an act of mercy.
Speaker 1: They had been separated from their family so young. By
Speaker 1: purchasing the whole family, Joseph made it possible for them
Speaker 1: to be reunited with their parents. I'm a bit skeptical
Speaker 1: of this altruism myself, but even so, this event surely
Speaker 1: was bitter sweet. The girls would go on to live
Speaker 1: at Joseph's home in Spartanburg, Tennessee. So while the rest
Speaker 1: of the family was still enslaved and working on the farm,
Speaker 1: Millie Christine was taught to read, write, and sing. The
Speaker 1: entire family was laboring, but for them the work looked
Speaker 1: much different. On stage, Millie Christine was billed as the
Speaker 1: two headed Nightingale and homage to Barnum's wealthy, cosmopolitan, wheeling
Speaker 1: and dealing Swedish protege Jenny Lynn. An ad from an
Speaker 1: English newspaper in eighteen seventy one even talked about their
Speaker 1: performance in glowing terms. She sings duets in soprano and
Speaker 1: contralto have voices. The review read, Chicken dances gray facefully
Speaker 1: and with as much enjoyment as any ballroom couple, and
Speaker 1: even when alone, she does not let company, being able
Speaker 1: to carry on a brilliant conversation with herself. It was
Speaker 1: amusing yesterday to notice how in the middle of a polka,
Speaker 1: the two heads inclined to each other, and the two
Speaker 1: voices kept chattering away in their inseparable but beyond doubt
Speaker 1: joyous companionship. In early November of eighteen sixty two, the
Speaker 1: twins suffered one of the greatest losses of their life.
Speaker 1: Joseph died, and in settling his debts, their family was
Speaker 1: once again sold off. Millie Christine's biography tells us that
Speaker 1: they stayed with his widow and even continued to do
Speaker 1: so after being legally freed. Following the end of the
Speaker 1: American Civil War, they were legally emancipated, but still they
Speaker 1: continued to exhibit, according to them, for the purpose of
Speaker 1: helping the widow Smith with bills and expenses that were
Speaker 1: left to her by her late husband. However, recently discovered
Speaker 1: letters in the National Archive tell a different story that
Speaker 1: Mrs Smith fused them their freedom and even kept them
Speaker 1: hidden from their parents. The letters document an argument between
Speaker 1: Mrs Smith and Monemia, forcing their mother's hand in signing
Speaker 1: over custody of the twins. In a powerful turn of events,
Speaker 1: though Millie Christine, who were young women by this point,
Speaker 1: eventually claimed their earnings and their freedom. They made their
Speaker 1: way together with their parents and brother to Welsh's Creek,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and there they bought and reclaimed the land
Speaker 1: their parents had once worked while enslaved. They would continue
Speaker 1: to exhibit in various cities in the Greater Area, evidently
Speaker 1: still in collaboration with Mrs Smith. Much of what we
Speaker 1: know about Millie Christine comes from the memoirs they wrote
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty nine, when they were just seventeen years old.
Speaker 1: Copies of it were sold at their performances for the
Speaker 1: equivalent of about five dollars. Today, some scholars have raised
Speaker 1: serious doubts as to whether the twins indeed are the
Speaker 1: authors of their history, and suspect that at the very
Speaker 1: least their former owners had considerable control over the material,
Speaker 1: or perhaps were even the true writers. Yet it would
Speaker 1: be unfair to Milly Christine to entirely discount these materials
Speaker 1: and assume they were wholly powerless. In the fall of
Speaker 1: eighty three, they headed back to their family. They spent
Speaker 1: months decorating their fourteen room home and even built extra
Speaker 1: wide doorways for themselves. They would tour off and on
Speaker 1: until Milly came down with tuberculosis in nineteen twelve. Their
Speaker 1: attending doctor was advised to not try to separate the twins,
Speaker 1: but rather to simply provide comforts. He left a message
Speaker 1: for the governor asking for permission to euthanize Christine. Milly
Speaker 1: died on October eight of nineteen twelve. Christine stayed alive
Speaker 1: for less than a day longer praying and singing hymns.
Speaker 1: The governor finally granted the doctor permission, and Christine was
Speaker 1: delivered a lethal dose of morphine to hasten her own death.
Speaker 1: Neither of them had wanted to ever be without the other.
Speaker 1: They could never dream of it, and now they never
Speaker 1: would be. Both in their own time and in the
Speaker 1: decades that followed, Chang and Yang and Millie Christine were
Speaker 1: often compared to each other. Indeed, they were operating in
Speaker 1: the world of side shows and standalone exhibits at around
Speaker 1: the same time, and according to at least one source,
Speaker 1: the two pairs may have even briefly exhibited alongside each other.
Speaker 1: But in many ways, there seems to be more that
Speaker 1: set Chang and Yang and Millie Christine apart than held
Speaker 1: them together. Chang and Ang were quite independent from one another,
Speaker 1: even having their own families who lived in separate homes
Speaker 1: side by side. They fought with one another, They had
Speaker 1: dramatically different personalities. They explored the possibility of separation at
Speaker 1: many points, even if it was declared too dangerous to
Speaker 1: be done. Milly Christine, on the other hand, while becoming
Speaker 1: highly independent, collectively, were nonetheless so close with one another
Speaker 1: that they spoke of them selves in the singular They
Speaker 1: never seem to have entertained the idea of being separated.
Speaker 1: The difference between the two can likewise be seen rather dramatically,
Speaker 1: and the events which unfolded after each had died. Following
Speaker 1: their deaths, Chang and Yang's respective widows initially did what
Speaker 1: any person would do with the death of their loved one.
Speaker 1: The family assembled and paid final respects. They had a
Speaker 1: local clergyman come and perform last rites. They also objected
Speaker 1: to allowing an autopsy to be performed on the two men,
Speaker 1: and wanted to bury the twins in the cellar. Their
Speaker 1: local physician convinced them to allow him to preserve the
Speaker 1: bodies in charcoal so that they may continue to keep
Speaker 1: them in the house. A doctor from Philadelphia felt the
Speaker 1: twins owed their autopsy to science after a lifetime of
Speaker 1: the best medical care available. In the end, the widows
Speaker 1: finally agreed, but wouldn't allow for their connective band to
Speaker 1: be dissected. The body was brought to Philadelphia to be
Speaker 1: examined in great secrecy, much to the newspapers chagrin. Some
Speaker 1: of Changan Yang's and trails, namely their joined liver, are
Speaker 1: still kept at the Mooder Museum, and later doctors and
Speaker 1: researchers continued to examine their organs even into the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. Oh and the same museum has a
Speaker 1: plaster cast made of the twins following their autopsy. In
Speaker 1: a way, the brothers continue to be sideshow oddities even
Speaker 1: after death. And as for Millie Christine, their family guarded
Speaker 1: their grave for nine months and it seems they had
Speaker 1: no trouble with grave robbers. In nineteen sixty nine, a
Speaker 1: descendant of theirs exhumed and reburied them under a new headstone,
Speaker 1: and the message upon it certainly captures the beautiful complexity
Speaker 1: of their lives. A soul with two thoughts, two hearts
Speaker 1: that beat us one. Today's tour through the Side Show
Speaker 1: gave us a look at unique siblings who, against and
Speaker 1: pretty incredible odds, came out on top others. However, I
Speaker 1: haven't been so lucky. Stick around through this brief sponsor
Speaker 1: break to hear one more tale about the side show.
Speaker 1: Before sending the sacks of apples and piles of potatoes
Speaker 1: out the door, Daisy and Violet Hilton dutifully weighed them
Speaker 1: one by one. They pile the fruits and vegetables high
Speaker 1: on the scale at the parking shop in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: The produce counter granted them a bit of anonymity. After all,
Speaker 1: a lot of their customers who got to know them
Speaker 1: over the seven years that they worked there, never realized
Speaker 1: that they were conjoined at the back. The Hilton sisters
Speaker 1: were born in Brighton, England, just a stone's throw from
Speaker 1: the seaside community's entertainment strip. Their mother was young, poor
Speaker 1: and unwed, a local barmaid who wanted nothing to do
Speaker 1: with her twins. After they were born monsters, she called them.
Speaker 1: She was hopeful that they wouldn't survive the night, and
Speaker 1: was deeply disappointed to awaken the morning and find them
Speaker 1: very much alive. Her boss, however, saw their potential and
Speaker 1: was quickly given custody of the newborns. And that's how
Speaker 1: not long after their birth, they were already being paraded
Speaker 1: in front of the public for a handful of coins.
Speaker 1: Over the course of their lifetime, the Hilton sisters would
Speaker 1: make money hand over fist on the side show circuit. However,
Speaker 1: the twins were kept in poverty most of their lives,
Speaker 1: their managers growing rich from their exploitation. They went to
Speaker 1: Charlotte for a reason, but stayed there due to great misfortune.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, around fifty years old, Daisy and
Speaker 1: Violet had gone on tour to promote Todd Browning's film Freaks,
Speaker 1: which they had started thirty years before. The movie had
Speaker 1: been recut and re released, and the twins, whose careers
Speaker 1: had faded over the years, we're hoping to cash in.
Speaker 1: But it didn't go as they had planned. In a
Speaker 1: cruel twist of fate, their manager abandoned them at the
Speaker 1: drive in, leaving them penniless with no way out of
Speaker 1: town and no prospects ahead. So when they showed up
Speaker 1: a Charles Reads grocery store, looking worse for wear and
Speaker 1: in need of a job, he gave them work. Charles
Speaker 1: was a compassionate neighbor who was going to help them
Speaker 1: get back on their feet. His wife took the women
Speaker 1: shopping for new clothes and helped them fix their hair.
Speaker 1: They tamed down the trappings of show business life, the
Speaker 1: red nails, the flamboyant makeup, and outfitted them in the
Speaker 1: store's signature red and white checkered shirt. When they eventually
Speaker 1: moved on to become cashiers. A booth was even modified
Speaker 1: to fit them both comfortably. The women guarded their private
Speaker 1: lives carefully. They turned down all interviews and all offers
Speaker 1: from doctors who wanted to examine them. After a life
Speaker 1: in the limelight, theirs had become a quiet existence and
Speaker 1: cons during the years of physical and psychological abuse that
Speaker 1: they had endured, perhaps even a happy one. Their long
Speaker 1: story came to an end in the winter of nine
Speaker 1: when Violet caught the flu and then Daisy did as well.
Speaker 1: Charles checked in on them regularly, but weeks into their
Speaker 1: illness they stopped answering the phone. A wellness checks soon
Speaker 1: revealed that the twins had passed away, most likely a
Speaker 1: few days apart. Daisy and Violet Hilton were lowered into
Speaker 1: their grave, just as they had passed through life together,
Speaker 1: side by side, through thick and thin. Inseparable Side Show
Speaker 1: was written by Robin Miniter, with narration by me Aaron Manckey.
Speaker 1: Research for the series was by Robin Minater, Taylor, Haggard Dorn,
Speaker 1: and Sam Alberty, with production assistance from Josh Thayne, Jesse Funk,
Speaker 1: Ala Williams, and Matt Frederick. Grim and Mile Presents was
Speaker 1: created in partnership with I Heart Radio. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about this show and everything else from Grim and
Speaker 1: mild Over at Grim and mild dot com and, as always,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. M HM