CARLSBORG — A baby boom hit Port Angeles in spring 1940, as three moms welcomed three sets of twins within a week and a half.
This was a highly unusual event, which the three families celebrated with first- and second-birthday parties for their six sons in May 1941 and ’42.
Last Friday the boys got together again, coming from around Western Washington to celebrate entry into their seventh decade.
Here are the twin sets: Duane and David Pearson, born a minute apart on May 20, 1940; Lyle and Lloyd Brown, born an hour and a half apart May 28, 1940; and Terry and Larry Konopaski, born 45 minutes apart May 30.
Twinning has become more common — about one in every 32 babies is born a twin nowadays, thanks in part to fertility therapy — but 70 years ago, the rate was one in 96. So a multiple birth could be quite a surprise.
And so it was to Joy Konopaski, who was brought out of the delivery room after giving birth to one baby boy.
The hospital staff suddenly realized she wasn’t finished, and whisked her back in for delivery of an identical brother.
Two of the three families moved away from Port Angeles: the Browns to Sequim, the Pearsons to Everett; the Konopaski twins stayed in their hometown, and after graduating from high school joined the Air Force together.
At Friday’s reunion, Terry Konopaski was the only one without his brother.
Larry died of cancer in 2002.
But Lyle Brown, who hosted the get-together at his Carlsborg home, made sure Terry came over for some fond reminiscing.
Let’s start with one story that sounds a bit like a sitcom.
“When we were 16 and 17, we looked so alike, the girls couldn’t tell us apart,” Lyle Brown said.
They could stand in for each other — and Lyle did just that one evening when his brother was sick.
Lloyd asked Lyle to call Donna, a girl he was dating, to let her know he was under the weather and couldn’t take her out that night.
Instead, Lyle called Donna and made arrangements to pick her up.
They enjoyed an evening together, and as Lyle, then 16, was kissing Donna good night, he murmured, “I’ll tell Lloyd we had a good time.”
“She slapped me,” Lyle recalled as Lloyd grinned.
The Browns didn’t give Donna’s last name, so she couldn’t be reached to confirm or comment on the incident.
Most of the twins grew up to work in the construction, logging or trucking industries, and moved around, following the jobs: Lloyd to Kodiak, Alaska, then Forks and Silverdale; Duane Pearson managed the real estate arm of the Simpson timber company; Terry Konopaski was a truck driver and mechanic while his brother Larry moved to Sekiu, owned a gas station, then ran heavy equipment, then drove a truck all over the state.
The Konopaski boys were known for being ingenious together.
Terry’s daughter Karen Anderson tells a family story of how when Terry and Larry were toddlers, they figured out how to escape from their playpen.
Terry would hunker down so Larry would use him as a springboard to hop over the side, then turn to help Terry up and over.
For the reunion last Friday Duane, who lives in Mukilteo, brought black baseball caps emblazoned with “70” for everybody to wear.
The guys shared a joke about when they put their heads together, it’s clear they all have one thing in common: They’ve lost about the same amount of hair over the years.
“We all part our hair with a wash rag,” Lyle quipped.
The men agree that growing up with a twin brother meant having a built-in accomplice for adventure. And the Browns were quite the twins-about-town in the ’50s: one had a paper route on one side of Sequim while the other tossed papers on the other side.
“We literally knew everyone,” Lyle remembered.
“But there was a down side,” he added.
In elementary school in Sequim, teachers would compare Lyle to Lloyd, chastising him if he didn’t get grades as good as his brother’s.
Lyle, as it turned out, became father to twin girls, Lynee and Lynette — and was determined to not compare them to each other.
Unlike Lyle and Lloyd, Lynette and Lynee were placed in separate classes as they made their way through the Sequim school system.
They’re 40 now, and in similar professions: Lynette is a nurse at Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles while Lynee is a childbirth educator at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.
So how did Lyle’s vow against comparisons go?
“I found myself just as guilty of it,” he admitted.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
