Conjoined Twins Jones

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Notable

Traits

Family

American oldest living unseparated congenitally united babies, believed to be the first case of its kind in which the babies lived. Born together weighing 11lbs, they were joined at the top of the head with separate brains but the same circulatory system. Their mom was a single parent with five older children, separated from her husband, Willie Jones. The twins were normal in every other way with a remarkable cheerfulness, a ready joke and a continual smile that left an impression with everyone who had contact with them. To cover high medical expenses, they joined a circus sideshow with the Clyde Beatty Circus for a decade before the girls turned to a career of traveling gospel singing. In their late 30's, they moved into an apartment of their own and enrolling in Compton Community College to study nursing and Braille. Scheduled to graduate, they died of heart failure in 1992 at the age of 43. The girls were buried together, holding hands, with a funeral attendance of over 200 people, none with a dry eye in the church. Each friend and family member felt blessed that they had known the Jones twins.