Quarternary Marriages

By Craig & Diane Sanders (Essay Last Updated, Jan. 31, 2006)

-- As close as many sets of twins are, it's only natural that twins sometimes end up marrying another set of twins. It doesn't happen too often (we've seen one reference to only 250 sets of identical twins married to identical twins in the world) but when it does, it can mean double bliss and a lot of second-glances.

The official term for these type of marriages is "quarternary marriages". We can speak from first-hand experience about the subject, as the two of us joined Diane's twin sister, Darlene, and Craig's twin brother, Mark, in a double wedding in Aviston, Illinois on November 13, 1999. The four of us now live in side-by-side houses in a suburb of Houston, TX with one big shared backyard between the two homes.

We all met at the annual Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio in 1998 and it was love at first sight times two. A little over 15 months later, each couple said "I Do" and began their respective lives together as husband and wife.

Other "quarternary marriages" have different beginnings. Barbi Kantor-Goldenberg of Rye Brook, New York and her twin sister, Cheryl, married twin brothers, Bruce and Barry Goldenberg, respectively, almost 30 years ago in different ceremonies that were a year apart. Today, the two couples remain happily married and have five children between them (both couples are shown on Barbi and Bruce's wedding day below). The Goldenberg children are actually full genetic siblings, an oddity of genetics that occurs when identical twins marry identical twins (since identical twins share the same DNA).

The Goldenberg-Kantor's Barbi Kantor-Goldenberg & Bruce Goldenberg's ® Wedding Day--June 5, 1977 Cheryl Kantor-Goldenberg & Barry Goldenberg (L) would celebrate 1st anniversary the next day

The Collister twins, husband Peter and wife Pauline, and Peter's twin John and Pauline's twin Pat, of Great Britain were profiled in Dr. Nancy Segal's book, Entwined Lives. Each couple has two children, with their youngest, Jennie (daughter of Peter and Pauline) and Tom (son of John and Pat), actually being born on the same day!

The book, Twins: Nature's Amazing Mystery, introduces the Sproul-Vargo marriages, in which Keith Sproul married Debbie Vargo and their twins Mark and Carol also married in a double ceremony in mid-1981. The Sproul-Vargo twins were born a day apart, on January 7, 1959 and January 8, 1959, respectively. But that's topped by twins Sean and Darren Duffy and Maxine and Helen Chambers, who were all born in the same hospital, the Royal Oldham Hospital in Oldham, England, on the same day, January 25, 1976. Darren and Helen were married in August, 2000 and Sean and Maxine were married around Christmas, 2000. Both women were expecting babies in January, 2001 and planned on delivering at Royal Oldham Hospital (with different due dates). We never saw an update on the sexes or birthdates of the babies, however.

The Sanders Twins with the Steele Twins at the 2000 Twins Days FestivalAt the 2000 Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, there were at least five sets of twins who met at the Festival and later got married, including the Sanders Twins, the Malm Twins, the Tesmer Twins, the Stanch Twins and the Steele Twins (in the picture to the right, the Sanders Twins are on the top row while the Steele Twins are on the bottom row). While the four of us Sanders Twins live in side-by-side houses, the Malm's, Stanch's, Tesmer's and Steele's all happily live together in one large house (in Idaho, New Jersey, Colorado and Missouri, respectively). Shawn and Melissa Steele and Mary and Scott Steele are profiled in the book, 'Twin Tales', and were married in a double wedding ceremony on March 28, 1998.

The Malm Twins are a real Twins Days success story as Doug and Phil Malm met Jill and Jena Lassen at the 1991 Festival. Jill and Jena were living at home in Battle Creek, Michigan and Doug and Phil both lived in Moscow, Idaho. The two sets of twins exchanged Christmas Cards and really started dating in earnest after the men won a lottery and took the women on a Caribbean Cruise. They were married at the 1993 Twins Days Festival in a ceremony attended by thousands of twins. The two families each have one child; Doug and Jill have a daughter, Rylie, while Phil and Jena have a son, Timothy. The Malm's will celebrate their double 10th anniversaries at the 2003 Twins Days Festival.

The Malm's Extended Family--click to see larger picture The Malm Families Note: Phil, Jena and Timothy on the left Doug, Jill and Rylie are on the right (click for larger view)

Roy and Troy Tesmer met Amanda and Rhianna Noah at the 2000 Twins Days Festival and the Ohio Noah Twins began dating the Colorado Tesmer Twins began dating several months later. The older and younger twins hit it off (Rhianna with Troy and Amanda with Roy) and the couples had a double wedding ceremony on November 24, 2001. Each couple now has one child as Amanda and Roy had a baby boy, Taber Cole, in the summer of 2002 and Rhianna and Troy had a baby girl, Isabelle Ann, in the fall of 2002. The families do live together in the same house in Hillsboro, Colorado. That's Roy, Amanda, Rhianna and Troy in the picture shown below from left-to-right. The families were profiled in the Jan. 2006 Ladies Home Journal Magazine.

We want to congratulate another recently married set of twin couples, Jennifer and Jason Schmelzer, and Amy and Jeff Schmelzer. The Michigan-based couples were married in a double wedding on August 30, 2003 and then each honeymooned in Aruba. You can read more about this couple at this posting.

One more set of couples who tied the knot in 2003 are 27-year-old male twin brothers, Chen Kun and Chen Peng, and their 24-year-old twin brides, Gao Ning and Gao Ding, who were married on November 23, 2003. These couples knew each other for 14 years before getting married and all perform together in the Changchun Acrobatic Troupe in China! Another China couple is also profiled in this online posting.

A Canadian quarternary marriage that has blossomed for more than 15 years are the happily married Lane families from Nova Scotia. Twin sisters, Angie and Amy, met John and Ronnie Lane, respectively, in junior high school and began double dating soon thereafter. They have now been happily married couples for several years. Both Lane couples welcomed sons within a two-month period in the summer of 1999 and John and Angie also welcomed a baby girl at the end of 2004. The families live one block apart from each other in the same Nova Scotian hamlet and their older boys attend school in the same class.

Another set also attend Twins Days every year, LaVona and LaVelda Rowe, with LaVona's husband, Alwin (unfortunately, Alwin's twin brother, Arthur, LaVelda's husband, passed away several years ago). The "Richmond 4", as they were known, were married in a double wedding ceremony on June 5, 1976 that featured twin best men, twin bridesmaids, twin organists, and dozens of sets of twins in attendance. There is even a set of twins, Lois and Louise Cates, who married Roy and Ray Sebring twice (they were married, got divorced, and later all remarried).

Rohrs Twins in 1987We read a touching story in the Orange County (CA) Register on twin sisters Elizabeth and Esther Bolling, who married twin brothers, Kenneth and Clarence Rohrs in 1935 and 1944, respectively. The two families lived within a mile of each other in Southern California for more than 50 years with a combined three children (each family has a son now in his 50's and Elizabeth and Kenneth also had a son who died at age 47) until Clarence passed away five years ago in 1996. Kenneth followed his brother, passing away in 2001 after he and Elizabeth celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. Elizabeth and Esther are thinking about moving in together again and we're happy to report that each is healthy as they celebrated their 90th birthday on July 28, 2001. The image to the right shows the happy couples back in 1987.

The Murray Twins of LeRoy and then Topkea, Kansas were also married for close to 60 years apiece. Vera and her twin sister, Verna, were married to Bob and Al Murray, respectively around 1936. Verna passed away in 1996 and both of the male Murray twins died in the year 2000. The two families had a combined five children and one of the adult children of these couples, Jim, (son of Vera and Bob) is interested in comparing experiences as the child of a one half of a quarternary marriage set if any other children with similar backgrounds would like to communicate with him. Please send me an email if you're interested in communicating with Jim and I'll try to put the two of you in touch.

Another quarternary marriage was profiled in the National Enquirer as twin Canadian-born doctors Gilles and Guy Leclerc live in side-by-side townhomes in Charleston, South Carolina with their French-born wives, Joelle and Florence. In the Leclerc twins case, the two couples actually met online chatting on a French web site and both sets of twins agreed to get married before even meeting face-to-face! The two couples were married June 6, 1998 in Lablachere, France in back-to-back church ceremonies. Florence and Guy Leclerc had a baby son, Alexis, on June 29, 2000, and a baby daughter, Leane, who was born in the spring of 2002. The Enquirer also ran a feature on Marianna and Nunzia Poerio and Davide and Tobia Iannone, two sets of twins who married in a double wedding ceremony in Naples, Italy in the late 90's.

Some earlier examples of identical twins who married identical twins are reported in the book, The Curious World of Twins. Among the cases cited in that book are the Salm Twins, Ed and Ferd, who married Ruth and Ruby on August 12, 1930, Cimarron, Kansas, where the two sets of twins attended high school together. There is also the case of the (incorrectly named) Loveless Twins, Harmon and Herman, who married twin sisters Lela and Lola Teague in 1919 in Carthage, Missouri. The Loveless Twins performed on Vaudeville circuits for years and remained married for more than 50 years. Identical twins, Herbert and Delbert Chase, of Thornton, Colorado also married the Sweet Twins, Jean and Jane, respectively, in a double wedding in 1954.

There is even at least one example of conjoined twins who married a non-conjoined pair of twins. Simplicio and Lucio Godino, conjoined twin brothers who were born in the Phillipines in 1908, married a pair of identical twin sisters, with whom they performed on Vaudeville. The Godina Twins (seen in the picture below) died within a few days of each other in 1936 and it is not known what happened to their wives.

Godina Twins, Lucia on left Lucia (l) and Simplicio Godina with another set of twins (not their wives)

A great romantic story was told to us by Isobel (Ingalls) Ricketts, who married Martel Ricketts in a double wedding ceremony on June 15, 1952 with her twin sister, Elizabeth, marrying Martel's twin brother, Mackall, in a ceremony that included twin flower girls. The two couples live in side-by-side homes in Southern Maryland and happily celebrated dual golden wedding anniversaries in June, 2002!

Mackall and Elizabeth have a son, Layne, two daughters, Carolyn and Diane, and three grandchildren. Martel and Isobel have a pair of sons, Byron and Darrel, a daughter, Tara, and six grandchildren. The Ricketts twins met while taking dancing lessons back in 1949. Pictured below are the Ricketts on the double wedding day and a family photo taken last year.

from left to right, Martel, Isobel, Elizabeth, MackallFrom left to right, Martel, Isobel, Elizabeth, Mackall

One interesting set of twins married to twins involved famous photographers, Marvin and Morgan Smith, of New York City, who married identical twin sisters in a double wedding and then got a double divorce three years later on the same day. Morgan passed away in 1993 at the age of 83, and Marvin died in November, 2003 at the age of 93. The New York Times obituary on Marvin required a bizarrre correction a few days later.

Finally, the 1967 trailblazing book on multiples, Twins and Supertwins, by Amram Scheinfeld, lists another half-dozen examples. Included in that list are the St. Martin Twins of Boston (Wilfred and Edwin marrying Marjorie and Marie Christodoro), the Rataczaks of Joplin, Missouri (Arnold and Donald marrying Lucille and Louise Baker), the Rubins of Long Island, New York (Hyman and Benjamin marrying Sylvia and Ruth Reisman), the Krafts of Kansas City (Raleigh and Roman marrying Ruby and Ruth Martens), the Pearsons of Beverly Hills, California (Andrall and Richard marrying Joanne and Janice Pope) and the Benevides of Fall River, Massachusetts (Antone and Robert marrying Joan and Jane Silva). The Chase Twins and Rubin Twins lived in one house together while the Rataczaks lived in virtually identical houses next door to each other. The 1965 book, Twins: Twice the Trouble, Twice the Fun, mentions that one of the Rubin couples ended up having identical twin girls of their own but it doesn't specify which couple or names of the twins. The other Rubin couple had a son.

In our situation, the two of us share quite a bit with our twin brother and sister, but we also maintain separate lives whenever possible. Since the two Sanders male adult twins work together, at least part of the family car pools each day. And we all probably dine together at one of our homes about one or two times a week. We share one big backyard and work on gardening and other home projects together on occasion. And we have an annual get-together of twins in Texas called the Texas Twins Round-Up Festival so perhaps more twins in the area will be able to meet other twins their age and who knows what will happen in the future??

And just so we can come full-circle with this story, we should let you know what can sometimes happen in quarternary marriages. On June 7, 2001, a little less than 19 months after the two of us tied the knot in a double ceremony with our twins, we welcomed our first children into the world, identical twin sons, Brady Lee and Colby David. We also want to pass along the happy news that Mark and Darlene welcomed their first child into the world, a healthy baby girl, Reagan, on December 30, 2001 and welcomed daughter #2, Landry, (another singleton) on May 16, 2003. Craig and Diane welcomed a third baby boy (just one this time!) on September 29, 2005 with the birth of Holden.

Although quarternary marriages aren't too common, they have been shown to be very happy unions. A 1970 study profiled 50 sets of twins who had married twins and revealed that only 8% of the couples had gotten divorces, well below the divorce rate at the time. We're happy proponents of quarternary marriages and look forward to hearing from more twins who have stories to share with us on the subject.