In some ways, it was a run of the mill event like hundreds before it in any number of communities – family and friends gathering to witness the union of a bride and a groom and to wish them well in their new life together. 

This one was different, though. The bride, a local gal, had somehow managed to snag an Irishman for her husband, and that almost never happened in these parts. Almost everyone from here married another someone from here, and usually someone they knew from church or school. But this funny-accented fellow had passed through, and they had met and fallen in love, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Most of their wedding guests lived nearby; others traveled some distance for the affair. Because the groom lacked many local connections, he was glad to have at least a few of out-of-town friends present.

This wedding, like most, had its share of single young celebrants, and among them were a pair of sisters – one seventeen, the other sixteen – and they caught the attention of the groom’s visiting friends, two brothers, in fact.  

Granted, these brothers were a good decade older than the sisters, but there was something so different and intriguing about them that it excused the age gap. They simply weren’t like the local boys, some of whom were rambunctious fools with less than stellar prospects on the horizon. No, these were gentlemen, very similar in looks and intelligence, and they seemed refined. They dressed smartly, had gracious manners, and were well-traveled to boot. They weren’t even thirty yet, but they had seen and known more of the world than people from these parts had ever dreamed of. 

The girls also observed that the same closeness they enjoyed as sisters was present in the brothers’ relationship with one another. In fact, it seemed as if the brothers were almost joined at the hip. They were forever in one another’s company; where one was, you always found the other.

Soon, the brothers began paying visits to the sisters’ home, and a dual courtship ensued. The young ladies discovered that the brothers were highly entertaining, telling interesting stories and capable of physical feats and parlor tricks. The girls’ parents also liked these young men, and the romances began to flourish. 

But not everyone cottoned to “fur-a-ners” (that is, somebody who ain’t from around here), and they expressed their disdain and cautioned the girls’ father against letting these relationships go further. Nevertheless, the father did give his girls and their boyfriends his blessing, and the two couples were married in a double ceremony.

The newlyweds were so intertwined that they set up a shared household, and before long, they began their own families. In fact, the sisters seemed to have their babies almost in tandem. By the time their child-bearing years reached an end, the two couples had a total of twenty-one children between them!

And this is how two of the most unique individuals the world has ever known – Chang and Eng Bunker – came to meet and marry two North Carolina sisters – Adelaide and Sarah Ann Yates. These brothers, natives of Siam (present-day Thailand), became famous as the “Siamese Twins,” a term that has ever since been used for conjoined twins.

As the late Paul Harvey would say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”