Twins, ’44 CHS Grads, Preparing to Turn 96

Imagine getting readying to turn 96 and having a sister who looks like your mirror image.

Yes, Rosemary VanCauwenbergh Griffin and Marjorie VanCauwenbergh Miller are identical twins and mirror images.

I wrote about the twins just before their 90th birthday in 2016, and I’m sharing the story again.

The twins were born during the Depression, on Friday, Oct. 22, 1926, in Indianapolis, in a house on Westfield Boulevard between Nora and Broad Ripple. They were the third and fourth of five children born to Victor and Ora (Keown) VanCauwenbergh. (The family has some interesting history. The twins’ dad, Victor, served in the Belgium military and the U.S. military in and around World War I. He migrated from Belgium through Ellis Island, while being employed as a mess boy in January and February 1918, according to a manifest of aliens employed on a vessel from Bordeaux, France, to New York. In old newspaper articles, Victor’s father, Frank VanCauwenbergh, appealed to King Albert of Belgium to relieve his son from service in the Belgium Army because the boy had run away from home the prior spring.)  The parents are buried at Gray Friends Church Cemetery.

Now back to the twins. After a fire that destroyed their home when the twins were 3, the family moved to Carmel where they spent the next 15 years being “The Van Twins,” according to Rosemary’s daughter, Amy Griffin Stinson, a 1973 Noblesville High School graduate, who shared their story six years ago.

The twins moved just east of the Gray Friends Church in Noblesville, where they attended church and their parents were caretakers. That’s where they celebrated their 90th birthday.

The twins’ father died when they were 6 years old. When they were 8, they moved to Carmel and lived in a house where the Carmel Lions Club is now, until they were 15.

The twins attended the same school on Main Street in Carmel all 12 years, graduating in 1944. “They were well known back in the day. Twins were rare because of survival rate, and they were also mirror twins. Mom is right handed and Marjorie is left handed,” said Alan Griffin, Rosemary’s son, a 1979 Noblesville High School graduate who lives near Amarillo, Texas, and who tagged me in a Facebook post this summer about his mom and her twin’s upcoming 96th birthday.

Being twins, they were pictured at the top of their Carmel High School graduating class photo (which is included with this newspaper column).

Rosemary met her future husband, Virgil Griffin, who lived in Sheridan and Noblesville, when she was barely 15 while the twins were working as carhops at a restaurant on U.S. 31.

“Mom married Dad just after World War II. They dated while Mom and Margie worked at a drive-in restaurant in Carmel,” Alan Griffin said.

Rosemary and Virgil Griffin, a 1942 Noblesville High School graduate, married while she was still in high school in 1943, three days before Virgil was drafted into the U.S.  Navy.

Marjorie married Robert Miller when she was 27, but not before breaking the hearts of several young men, according to family stories.

Rosemary and Virgil Griffin moved in 1948 to Noblesville’s Riverwood community, where she lived for the next 60 years. They had four children who all graduated from NHS, Diana in 1964, Jay in 1967, Amy in 1973 and Alan in 1979. The Griffins owned and operated a home-improvement business, which Rosemary took over as owner after Virgil died in 1973. The aluminum-siding business ran for more than 26 years. Rosemary also worked for 17 years at the Noblesville Walmart, retiring when she was nearly 80 years old.

Robert was a career military man, a warrant officer in the U.S. Air Force. He and Marjorie had three children (their oldest son, Stephen Miller, retired from the Air Force a Major General; middle child, the late David Miller; and Melissa Miller-Hudson, who lives near her mother) and were stationed in places as diverse as Germany and Biloxi, Miss. When he retired in 1969, they moved to Orlando, Fla., where they lived for nearly 40 years. Robert died near their 60th wedding anniversary.

Today, Rosemary lives in Greenwood close to daughter, Amy, while Marjorie lives in Winston-Salem, N.C., close to her daughter. Relatives live in Westfield, Sheridan, Fishers and Carmel.

The twins try to see each other every year and talk on the telephone often, Alan Griffin said. Most recently, they saw each other about two months ago. They didn’t have plans to get together for their actual birthdate due to health reasons. Both are showing signs of dementia.

Both have enjoyed being avid sewers. Even though they lived far apart, it wasn’t unusual for them to buy the same patterns and fabric, thereby dressing alike.

One time they were getting ready for bed, and they pulled out the same nightgown.

And imagine this: Virgil took Marjorie to a family reunion instead of Rosemary, and nobody knew the difference.

Contact Betsy Reason at betsy@thetimes24-7.com. As I was writing this newspaper column, I learned that Marjorie Miller may have had a stroke, and Alan’s sister, Amy, was on her way to take their mother, Rosemary Griffin, to see Marjorie. Please keep these twins and their families in your prayers.