HIGH POINT CONFIDENTIAL: Brotherly bliss - Twins reunited in High Point after 62 years apart

Jul. 1—HIGH POINT — If absence truly makes the heart grow fonder, you can imagine the joy in the room when James and John Williams — a pair of 81-year-old identical twins — saw each other for the first time in more than 60 years.

It was a moment of sibling revelry ... times two!

The year was 1953, and James had been living in High Point for at least a decade. The problem was that John thought his twin brother had long since died. It was only after a string of disappointing discoveries, followed by an encouraging coincidence, that the two men were finally able to find each other.

"Recognition was instantaneous, because they are still identical twins," a journalist wrote for a newspaper in Indiana, where John had settled.

So how did a pair of identical twins, who had done everything together growing up — even taking up chewing tobacco together at the age of 6 — lose touch with one another for so long? And then, how did the two men — who lived more than 600 miles apart — eventually find each other?

Glad you asked.

The Williams brothers were born in 1872 in Washington County, Virginia. Like most twins, they were practically inseparable growing up, until they tried to enlist in the Army together in 1891. James was accepted, but John was unexpectedly rejected because of an eye defect. As he left for training, James waved a sad farewell to his brother, who stood there weeping because he couldn't go, too.

Little did they know they wouldn't see each other again for another 62 years.

James fought in the Spanish-American War and was severely wounded during the famous 1898 charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba. Following the war, he married and raised a family on a farm in Matthews. It's not clear why he didn't return to Virginia or contact family members, but he didn't.

Meanwhile, John — also a farmer — settled in Attica, Indiana, with a family of his own. He and other kinfolk, who hadn't heard from James in years, feared he had died in the war. Why else would he not get in touch? Nonetheless, they never stopped trying to find out what had become of John's long-lost twin brother.

At one point in the late 1920s, family members heard James and his wife had died in Florida. In the mid-1940s, they heard that a James Williams — possibly John's brother — was living in High Point. John immediately boarded a bus and headed for High Point, but on the bus he met an elderly man who said he'd known a James Williams in High Point, but he'd been dead several years. Discouraged, John turned around and headed back home before ever reaching High Point.

Eight years later, in early 1953, a family member in Marion, Virginia, saw the words "High Point, N.C." on a truck that was passing through town. He flagged down the driver and asked if he knew of an elderly man named James Williams living in High Point.

Sure enough, the driver knew him ... and even knew where he lived.

One thing quickly led to another, and the next thing they knew, John and James were hugging in a joyful reunion. They spent long hours reminiscing about their childhood, filling each other in on their lives when they were apart, singing together and good-naturedly teasing one another, just as they'd done as kids.

John, who was an hour older than James, ribbed James by saying, "You'd better mind me — I'm older than you are."

To which James, heavier by a mere six pounds, replied, "Yes, but I'm bigger than you are."

Some things never change ... even after 62 years.

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579