[Clipping: It's a double feature] Part: 3 of 3
This clipping is part of the collection entitled: Texas History Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Patrick Heath Public Library.
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The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Twins from page El
make an interesting subject
because two strikingly similar-
looking people translate well
visually.
He was particularly taken
with Chipman and Kennon
because of their age and how
active they are, how they paint
together and zoom around
the ranch together in a John
Deere Gator, across rocky paths
and bumpy inclines toward
Chipman's son's swimming
pool.
What's more, Langmore says,
"I was fascinated with their
ancestry." -
Their ancestors were among
the early immigrants from
Germany to settle in the Hill
Country. Their great-great-
grandfather, Dr. Ferdinand
Herff, was a surgeon in San
Antonio; his family retreated
each year to their summer home
in Boerne.
For his show, Langmore also
photographed the Herff twins
posing with 7-year-old identical
twins who are Chipman's great-
granddaughters.
"My hope for them,"
Chipman says, "is that they will
be as close and keep in touch as
Carolyn and I always have -
that they enjoy being twins as
much as we enjoy being twins."
For Chipman and Kennon,
life feels as if it has come full
circle.
The two began life together,
four minutes apart, born into
a storied family as the only
offspring of an 18-year-old
mother who died following
childbirth at Santa Rosa
Hospital.
Raised by their maternal
grandparents in Alamo
Heights, the blue-eyed
girls looked so similar that
schoolmates had to scrutinize
their faces for a little scar left
after Carolyn caught her lip on
a screen door while learning to
walk.
"We were each other's other
self," Kennon says.
As little girls, they dressed
alike, shared a bedroom and -
whispering in their twin beds
- drifted off together
into an imaginary world,
conjuring up a fairy that lived intheir stomachs.
Real life eventually tore them
apart.
Chipman married first. After
the wedding, Kennon says, "For
a year and nine months, I was
really lost."
Then she, too, married and
made a home in her husband's
native Nashville, where his
widowed mother lived and
where he joined a medical
practice.
"Nothing else could've taken
me away from my twin except
for him," she says.
Each summer, the women
returned to the family ranch
with their growing families.
During the months between
visits, communication was a
challenge.
"It was too expensive to talk
on the phone. We wrote letters,"
Kennon says.
They asked each other for
advice on child-rearing; they
supported each other through
life's devastating lows and
exhilarating highs - the births
of nine children between them;
the death of Chipman's first
husband, Jimmy Drought; her
remarriage 50 years ago to
Guy Chipman; the death of
Kennon's husband, Dr. Bill
Kennon.
Once widowed, Kennon was
drawn back to her twin, despite
having lived in Nashville for so
long.
"It seemed to be the natural
thing to do," she says. "I knew
she wanted me, and I knew I
wanted her."
Kennon arranged for her
own little house to be built on
the ranch. Now, every day, she
drives her Honda CR-V down
the winding dirt roads to her
sister's house.
At this stage in life, the
women lend each other
strength, just as they did as
girls.
"I couldn't live up on that hill
by myself if Juanita and Guy
weren't here," Kennon says.
For Chipman, having her
sister back is "wonderful,
absolutely wonderful."
"It means that my life is
complete," she says, "and I feel
whole again."mjaffee@express-news-net
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Reference the current part of this Clipping.
Jaffee, Michelle Koidin. [Clipping: It's a double feature], clipping, September 5, 2012; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1560496/m1/3/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Patrick Heath Public Library.