They exceeded all doctors’ expectations.
Laurie and George (formerly Dorie) Chappell from Pennsylvania, USA are the world’s oldest conjoined twins.
About it reports Guinness Book of Records.
They were born on September 18, 1961. Now they are 62 years old. They are craniopagus twins, meaning they share partially fused skulls, shared vital blood vessels, and 30% of the brain (frontal and parietal). This is the rarest form of conjoined twins, accounting for only 2–6% of cases.
Laurie is able to work, but George has a spinal cleft, so he cannot walk. To get around, he sits on a cart-type stool, pushing Lori.
Laurie and George became the first same-sex conjoined twins to identify as different genders when George came out as transgender in 2007. He has not had gender reassignment surgery, but he dresses and identifies as a man.
George previously went by the name Reba, inspired by singer Reba McEntire, as he didn’t like his name rhyming with his sister’s name.
The twins spent the first 24 years of their lives in an institution for the mentally retarded – despite the fact that neither of them was mentally retarded – after they were placed there by a court that decided their parents could not properly care for them.
However, Laurie and George were not completely cut off from their parents, who inspired their children to believe that God had intentionally created them that way, so the twins never complained about their condition or expressed a desire to separate.
“Are we going to break up? Absolutely not,” George said in the 1997 documentary. “My theory is: why fix something that isn’t broken?”
Since 1988, they had lived separately in a two-bedroom apartment, each with its own room, alternating nights sleeping in each.
George found success in the ’90s as a professional country singer, performing all over the world, while Laurie is a trophy-winning ten-pin bowler who worked in a hospital laundry for several years, fitting her work schedule around George’s performances.
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The twins try to do everything as individually as possible, particularly showering: “We don’t always shower at the same time; in fact, almost never,” Laurie said. They achieve this by using a shower curtain as a barrier between them while one is showering and the other is standing by the bathtub.
They do their hobbies in their rooms, with one of them actually passing out while in the other’s room. “This is her room. I’m here in body, but that’s it,” Lori explained. “Just because we can’t get up and leave each other doesn’t mean we can’t be alone with other people or with ourselves.”
The twins have the same approach to their romantic lives: “When I went on dates, George would take books with him and because we weren’t looking at each other, he would ignore any kissing,” Laurie told The Sun in 2011.
Lori also revealed that she lost her virginity to her second boyfriend when she was 23. During sex, George said he could “act like he’s not there.”
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Both twins are still single. In the past, Lori expressed a desire to have children, but this dream never came to fruition. She had several boyfriends throughout her life and was even engaged at one point, but her fiancé was tragically killed by a drunk driver.
Now in their sixties, Laurie and George have far exceeded the expectations of medical professionals who predicted the couple would not live past 30.
In fact, Laurie and George are the oldest female conjoined twins. If they live another six years, they will become the oldest conjoined twins ever, surpassing Ronnie and Donnie Galion (USA; 1951–2020), who died at age 68.
Recall that recently the oldest male triplets in the world celebrated a birthday. They were born on December 1, 1930.
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